Timing Belt - Rear Cam seems to be just a little off? Is that okay?

On these cars, you can’t really be ‘1/4 tooth’ off. You can only be a full tooth off.

Set the cams so they line up with the marks. Then set the crankshaft and put the belt on the cams. Make sure there’s no slack at the water pump. The forward idler should be slightly loose to allow the taper to let it sit just under the tight point. Install the belt on the crankshaft and tighten the idler pulley. If it’s done right, there shouldn’t be any slack between the crankshaft and the front camshaft.

If that’s all set, all slack will go to the tensioner. If that’s the case, pull the pin on the tensioner and rotate the crankshaft two full turns. All the marks should line up.

Also, the marks you’re working with aren’t exactly perfect. This car doesn’t have cam phasing, just VTEC and VCM. The timing is pretty basic.

Good luck!

@Joss
Yeah, so I’ve installed all the new parts (water pump, tensioner, tensioner pulley, idler pulley), but I haven’t pulled the pin on the tensioner yet. There’s no slack except where I haven’t set the tensioner.

So based on the pictures, do you think it looks good? I couldn’t tell it was off. I only noticed when I used a boroscope to closely check if the tooth in front of the mark lined up, and it looked just slightly off.

@Wilder
Looks fine from the pictures. But I don’t see a picture of the crankshaft.

Go ahead and pull the pin, rotate, and then recheck. It looks pretty good to me though.

2010 Ridgeline

I’ve been trying to get the timing marks set all day. The rear cam slipped forward, so I had to realign the marks multiple times. The crank and front cam have stayed lined up, but the rear cam has been giving me trouble. Every time I put the belt on, the rear cam would shift a little.

I finally got the belt on and it looked good. But when I looked closely, in Picture #2, the tooth (which seems to line up with the marks) is a bit off, like 1/4 of a tooth. Is that okay?

1st pic shows where I tried to align the camera as best as I could.

2nd pic is a close-up using a boroscope. I marked the tooth with white paint (the entire tooth wasn’t fully marked, so I drew red lines to show the true width of the cam tooth).

3rd pic is me trying to line up all 3 marks. Not sure if that means much though.

Looks fine. Have you pulled the pin on the tensioner and rotated it yet?

Dara said:
Looks fine. Have you pulled the pin on the tensioner and rotated it yet?

No, not yet. I hesitated and thought I’d take some pictures and check with people here to see if it looks okay first.