97 Camry 3.0 V6 (interference engine)

I was helping a buddy change his timing belt last weekend.

We got everything lined up and started the disassembly. Following the manual, we removed the belt from the cam gears. While trying to remove the crank pully/harmonicbalancerafterwards, it turned some, so we ended up turning it around another 1 1/2 times to get back to TDC after getting the pully off.

1: Can turning the crankshaft by hand with the timing belt completely off the car bend the valves? The cam gears were lined up.


My buddy insisted on changing the waterpump as well. To do this you have to remove the cam pully's.(we have not succeeded at this yet.) We wedged a screwdriver in the pully and tried to get the cam pully bolt off. At the most, the cam pully moved an inch or so.

2: If the crank was not perfectly at TDC, and we wrenched on the cam bolt as described above, could this have possible bent a valve or messed something up. We were trying the one closest to the front of the car.

3: What position are the valves when they are lined up with the notch?

We decided to get some special holding tool for the cam pully to get the bolt off, so we will not be able to finish untill next weekend. He is pretty worried we screwed something up, but i think we are probably okay. We will find out this coming weekend, but it would be nice to get some advice beforehand.

Thanks

 

Yes. You should have loosened the crank bolt before removing the timing belt.


Also a no-no, and yes, it is possible to bend valve depending on how much force you used to turn the cam. TDC only refers to #1 cylinder. You need to use a proper tool to hold the cam from turning when removing the cam bolt. I made one with simple tools, so buying one is not always necessary.


Different positions depending on cam lobe position. You can see which valves are open by looking at the cam lobes.

Loss of compressionwill tell you. Only way now to tell would be to re-assemble and do a compression test. As long as you did not force the turning of the crankand cam shafts you may be ok.1-1/2 turns of crank worries me - and you may have lost the correct set-up for timing re-assembly.

 

If you did not reef on crank or cams and they turned freely (as in not stopping) you should be OK.