I have an opportunity to buy a 1996 VW Jetta for $500. The seller claims that he had a shop put a timing belt on it, but it doesn't run right since. The shop told him it now needs a "tune-up". My gut is that the timing is off. I'm going to look at the car tomorrow and need to know if there is a quick-and-dirty way to tell if the timing is off. I posted on the vwvortex, and while everyone there seems to know which oversize tires will fit on which car, they are all mum on this subject.

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2002 Ford ZX2
2 x 2013 Honda Civics

Bear with me Dave, I don't remember the exact details of the notches in question, they change yr to yr. but here goes:

At the rear edge of the harmonic balancer, there is, at one spot, a notch. It lines up with either a dimple or hashmark on the timing cover. That is the crank TDC mark. Problem is, it can move(rubber in the damper). Yank the upper timing cover off. When the bottom notches are lined up, you should see a notch on the back of the cam pulley- it should be lined up with the valve cover gasket. (Sounds funny but that's where it aligns to!) Are you on time? The dist. drive is from a intermediate shaft which must also be timed to the cam and crank of course. Pull the dist cap. With the other two marks lined up, is the nose of the dist rotor pointing at either a notch in the rim of the distributor body, or if there is no notch, at #1 tower?

These are easy to mistime, those old ABA code 2.0 Jettas. I take it it's not a VR6? Those have chains. On the transmission side of the motor

I find that the thing to do is crank it round till the cam lines up, then paintmark the other two pulleys at wherever they line up to- the rubber in the harmonic damper likes to make a liar out of the crank pulley pointer...

HTH!!!

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1985 300TD
1984 380SL
1983 280SE (full Euro, trunk triangle and all!)

Formerly owned:
1986 420SEL
1984 300D
1983 300D
1981 300SD
1976 300D

Thanks much, I'm looking at the car today.

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2002 Ford ZX2
2 x 2013 Honda Civics

Dave, I wonder if you can find someone in your area with VAGCOM to check the timing for you. I know the VAGCOM tool is needed to accurately set the timing on the diesels, not sure about the gas cars.

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1998 W210 diesel (wiped out by a texter)
Baum spring compressor "for rent"

I wouldn't worry about VAGCOM on a 1996. that's the first yr of OBDII, even, and the engine still is sparked by a distributor. It's not essentially different from a 1975 Rabbit in the timing belt/pulleys dept.

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1985 300TD
1984 380SL
1983 280SE (full Euro, trunk triangle and all!)

Formerly owned:
1986 420SEL
1984 300D
1983 300D
1981 300SD
1976 300D

Buy it before someone else does. They are not an interferience engine. Its sometimes difficult to line up the pully for the intermediate shaft. All it runs is the dist and the oil pump so if you like you can just move the dist.
Thats a money maker right there. BTW with a little bit of experience you should be able to do the timing belt in less than an hour on the floor. It's easy!

I'm thinking that unless it's the world's biggest POS I'm going to snap it up.

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2002 Ford ZX2
2 x 2013 Honda Civics

How many cars are you up to now?

I've unloaded several lately. I looked at the VW and have misgivings. The seller freely admits that it has a salvage title, which doesn't scare me, and he showed me a copy of a carfax showing a rear end collision that led to the branded title. My issue is that the rear quarters have been straightened, to a fair standard, and the LKQ declkid that they used doesn't really fit the quarters and rear body all that well. The color match to the rest of the car isn't all that great either. The car is dark blue, and the red paint on the decklid is showing under the decklid spoiler where the blue is peeling. That tells me that they probably didn't remove the spoiler to paint the lid, another sign of a sloppy repair. My main concern is structural...how much repair was done, and to what standard? I would hate to spend amy money on a car that is not basically sound.

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2002 Ford ZX2
2 x 2013 Honda Civics

These dudes are right about the Gilmer belts,I've seen Hondas that were 1 or 2 notches off that a re-alignment cured. Choose your course of action wisely.

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