so i was trying to tune my idle today (MS full stand alone)
i noticed my vac wasnt building very well, usually it idles fine at 35 -38 kpa, but now i have low idle rpm and vac is higher in the 44s.. so i thought mayb a vac leak even tho i didnt change anything or setting.

Looked at my timing belt and its not tought as the engine is running, i can see it oscillate, so much that it hits the guard!

so i pulled off my VC, put crank at TDC, the cam hole are straight up, so the timing is good. as i manually crank the engine around the belt is tight like it should be but if i barely turn the crank the other way, all this slack is introduced, so much that i can almost pull the belt off the cam gear teeth.. this isnt right, neither is the fact that when it idles the belt seems floppy,, watching my other 420a durning idle the belt is 100% not floppy and tight always..so somehtings wrong here

im thinking tensioner? i have a hydrolic one, its not new or old, mayb a few k to 10 k, so not used to hard.

ill post pix and a vid asap.

Ideas?? if it is the tensoer would now be a good time to go mechanincal?

the engine has mayb 4k miles.

Pull the cover off, it's probably the tensioner/ idler pulley bearing gone. I had this exact same thing happen to me. I pulled the cover off and all of the ball bearings from both pulleys just dropped out of the bottom. It didn't jump timing or anything, but it definately wasn't running right and then it wouldn't start. Got the timing set from Autozone for about $60 and had no problems since.

it runs, just not like it did yesterday.. looks like ima get the mech tesnioner

this correct??:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/95-01-Dodge-Neon-Mitsubishi-Eclipse-2-0-DOHC-Timing-Kit-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQfitsZModelQ3aNeonQQhashZitem45f6270424QQitemZ300482495524QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

I'd order the kit from somewhere other than ebay, but that's just me.

pix

mine did that. got mechanical. problem solved.

Did you move the cam gear or did it move itself?

move the cam gear? the timing remained when the belt had tension, i put it at tdc, and the cams linged up via holes in cam, i did that to verify if my cam gear messed up or the tensioer. the gear looks gtg

I just noticed that your intake cam gear was zeroed out and the exhaust was retarded a bit. Did you retard it or did the nuts back out?

oh, they are aftermarket, so one reqired that movement to be "zeroed" i will be replacing thier hardware while im in there tho

so i took the tensioer off yesterday, and left it on the shop floor, cam in today and huge puddle of oil from the tensioner, looks like it was leaking from the plunger area..fail