2001 Corolla Le, Can You Over Rotate The Drive Belt?
by Camation, February 9, 2015
Today I just had a little project of changing out my timing chain tensioner because of a leak. The switch worked out fine, I'm checking to see if it's still going to leak. I do have a couple questions:
When I was rotating the drive belt, I heard the pop but I kept rotating it a bit more "just incase" it didn't fully come out. Realizing that all the guides on this say to stop rotating after you hear a click, would this cause any trouble? I hear a quiet fast ticking or tapping noise only when I accelerate and when I go faster, it speeds up and gets a tiny bit louder. I put my car in park and revved my engine and I didn't hear any ticking but I t sounds like it's coming from the passenger side of the engine. Did I mess my car up?
The part below the tensioner is covered in gunk. Anyone have advice on how to clean it?
Thanks
Nope - no issue if you keep turning the crank after the pop, more of a workout for you. The timing chain tensioner is controlled by oil pressure - so it can't be "too" tight.
Possible that something got pushed in / fell in there during the replacement. Impossible to know for sure now, unless you tear down the engine.
As for cleaning up oil residue/road gunk like that - any sort of petroleum based solvent will work. They also have lots of commercial engine degreasers that would work - just follow the instructions. For really heavy deposits - will have to use some elbow grease to work the stuff loose and give the solvent a chance to break it up.
Okay, thanks! So it can't be my new timing chain tensioner? I might swap it with my old one just to see if the rattle goes away. It's weird how this rattle came after switching the part.
