Slipped timing belt lw300 2001

[johog]

I screwed up while trying to change the timing belt on my lw300. I loosened the tensioner before I aligned the marks. I retightened the tensioner to turn the engine to align them but not tight enough. The tensioner slipped loose and the belt turned the crank and some cams but not all of them. Now I am in the same boat as with a broken belt minus the bent valves. Some of the posts here just say to align all the marks and continue forward but I thought the crank turned twice for every rotation of the cams? True? False? If 2 turns then how do I know which rotation I am currently on? Can anyone help me keep from trashing my engine? I figured this job was just inside my skill level if I could keep everything straight and locked down. Now I am over my head as I have never rebuilt an engine and TDC is not something I know how to find. If anyone is in the Bloomington MN area I would even be willing to pay someone to help get the belt on properly. Any help would be really great. V6 3.0L
Thanks
John

[conversekidz]

I've done the same thing, not a big deal. all you have to do is turn everything until the marks line up.

Search on the forum for the reference image.

[s3nfo]

Yep, just keep turning things until the marks all line up. You may get lucky and get it on the first try, but sometimes a valve will hit an up piston and you'll need to move the crank to get the valve clear and it may take several interations of "move the cam", then "move the crank", then "move the cam", repeat until it's all good.

[johog]

Just a reply to follow up. thanks for all the posts that got me through this project. I was able to get things all back together on the first try. It was pretty easy. the hardest part of the project was finding the dumb spark plugs as I had never worked on this engine before. I have to say it went so well it was almost scary. I was really nervious as I have never done internal engine work before on anything. I would rather not do all the cleaning required to get the gunk out that the leaking water pump and the disintigrating timing belt created again but that is a small price to pay.

The only problem that still existis is an occational missfire on cylinder 3. It seems to be almost always when I try to excelerate fast while on an entrence ramp. The engine studders for a second or 2 and I get the engine light flashing. When i pull the code it is always a cyl 3 misfire. Any input would be great.

I have run the engine for over 5K miles like this and while not ideal it works fine if you don't tromp on it. I will be posting a new tread about a new problem with a bad gas smell that has recently developed.
Thanks again for all the help.
Johog