Lancia Beta Forum

So, the timing belt from my Lancia doesn't stay in the center, and has a habit of going to the side.
Even after setting it dead in the middle again, after 30 seconds to a minute of letting the engine run it's back to the side again. Is it a familiar issue with these belts? And what can be done to help it?

- Gerke

Here are the pictures
 

Your Aux Driver Shaft pulley is missing a rear flange. This is what controls the belt position to the rear. You need to fix this before the belt comes off and it gets expensive.

Sorry

Eric

Also, I see the timing cover bracket is misaligned/bent at
an angle.
This may or may not be a contributing factor,nevertheless it's
wise to fix this.
Eric is correct, the aux [distributor drive shaft] pulley is supposed
to have a flange on the engine side to prevent your issue.
Also check that the belt tensioner pulley/bearing assembly is in
its correct position/aligned correctly/seated.

Best regards, Nigel

The more i look at the photos the more i am intrigued by the bent timing pointer. How can it possibly be the way it is? It bolts onto the cylinder head and the water rail lug and somebody has had to bend the two pointers to clear the pulleys!
Here's a question for you - did the belt sit right before you changed it or was it like that when you got the car?

Hi Hutch

I think you may be correct, to my eyes it looks like the cam pulleys are offset from normal and the pointers bent to suit. I seem to remember some comment ages ago about Marcus(?) buying vernier cam pulleys which were offset and were for a Fiat version of the engine?

I would like to see how the belt fits on the idler pulley as that would confirm the alignment.

Peter

Thanks for all the awnsers,

So, we mounted our aux driver shaft pulley the wrong way i guess, with the flange not towards the engine? The pulley was mounted this way since we got the engine 3 years back, and according to the Haynes book it's supposed to not be towards the engine side either.

The timing cover bracket has also been fixed now.

- Gerke

Hello Peter,

Here's a picture of the Idler Pulley

- Gerke

The Volumex engine I built for the Stratos replica had Vernier cam wheels. The scrapyard that removed the engine had hooked one of the originals to lift it out and, unsurprisingly, it broke... It was cheaper to buy the vernier wheels than pay a dealer price for a single cam wheel at the time!

So, I'm sat there one evening with the Stratos built up fully and, after an hour of thinking if there was anything I'd forgotten and looking around it I finally built up the courage to see if it would start. Well, it did but with one hell of a racket on the first turn of the key - not just the exhaust in a confined space but a metallic clicking I'd never heard from a twink. I turned it off pretty quickly and had a long hard look around it and found it pretty quickly - the timing pointers were being contacted by the cam wheels. Sorted with a ring spanner slid over the ends to bend the points away a few mm and it restarted perfectly!

To our suprise, it seems that the spare engine has the Flange towards the engine side.
It's odd though, since on our Lancia, the flange had always not been on the engine side even before we got it, and the Haynes book also had it this way.

- Gerke

Hello,

Any thought on this aux pulley and if it's the right one for this car?
We also tried switching it to the other side but it's just a one way thing, it's supposed to have the flange not towards the engine side.

For now i think we'll try to put the one from our spare engine on our main engine.

- Gerke

This is the one from our spare engine. Any info about these?

Hi with the later cast Iron no flange cam wheels you have an Aux DS pulley with a rear flange. This is what you need so use that one.

Earlier engines originally had cam wheels with flanges on them and an aux DS pulley with a front flange. The earlier cam pulley on the inlet side was plastic and they wear badly and often the flange would break. I suspect you engine has had the head off in the past (head gasket failure) and the cam wheels were changed to the later cast iron no flange pattern.

IE and VX generation cars have a steel Aux DS pulley with a rear flange replacing the weaker plastic AUX DS rear flange pulley.

So your situation is from parts mixed between engine series.

Eric   

Hello Eric,

Thank you for telling me this, it makes so much more sense now.
I switched the Aux Pulley and now the timing belts stays in the right place!

- Gerke