Quite the story you may enjoy

So over the last few months I have been having problems with my LGT 98 (manual), The first incident happened at the end of april. I was driving through a parking lot and i suddenly lost all power and the car stalled out, car would cranks but wouldnt turn over. Did all troubleshooting over the next week to finally find the timing had skipped about 5-6 teeth, so I replaced the belt (was chewed up and stretched) and and checked all idlers, the tensioner and the waterpump, a-ok. Car starts up right away. The car runs perfectly for the week to and from work everyday until the following weekend when once again the timing skips. I went in to the coffee shop and came out, car wont start and sounds just like it did last time, no signs or anything to this happening was running perfect earlier. So I redneck towed it 2 km's home and checked the timing and it is off by 5-6 teeth once again (this has became strange to me as this is an interference engine and still to this day no valve damage) So all my knowledge and advice points to a faulty tensioner as the idlers and everything else are working perfectly. And I also saw some liquid on the tensioner which was a bad sign. Finally the part comes in and I replace it and reset the timing, once again car starts up right away and runs perfect (this time strangely with a tick that speeds up and slows down according to rpms, does NOT effect performance) so I run the car for another week after thinking I had fixed the problem, and following the next week the car begins to hesitate when driving at 4000rpm or higher and had developed a rough idle, these things ONLY happened after driving the car for 10-15 mins which was strange, so I did seafoam treatment, replaced fuel filter, checked everything else that is casual and used higher octane fuel. None of this fixed the problem, so i scanned the car and got 7 codes, first 4 being every single cylinder misfiring, next being crankshaft, next being high idle, and last being o2 sensor which I knew about. Wrote down codes then cleared them... Went to start the car and whaddya know, car wont start. So I immediately think wtf is this the timing belt again? I take it all apart again, and this time it is evident that the belt only skipped over the crank gear because all the other timing was lined up perfectly, but the crank gear was at 8 o'clock instead of 12 o'clock. So this is the 3rd time this timing has skipped so im thinking it must be something else and how the hell did it skip on the crank gear, it seems impossible? I do my research for the next few days and find it all out... everything that has been causing me troubles for the last 2 months... all these times have all been caused by a single piece of thin metal that is held in by 2 bolts probably worth 25 cents. This piece of metal sits right on top of the crank gear on the manual ej25's that holds the belt firmly down to prevent it from jumping when changing gears. So for some odd reason mine didn't have that part..? either the previous owner did this job and for some reason took this little part out and never put it back in, or my engine was from a car with an auto transmission. After resetting the timing, putting in this new tiny metal part and starting it up, the car runs perfect again. No bent valves, No rough idle or hesitation anymore. I guess im just a lucky guy, just goes to show that the tiniest little part that could go unnoticed forever could cause your whole engine to ruin its own harmony. That mysterious tick is still there though:spin: if anyone has a solution feel free to chime in.

I hope you all enjoyed the story of my last few miserable months:lol:

Very interesting indeed! Your little story may turn out to be invaluable information to me as i am planning a manual conversion on my ej22, different engine i know but it could have a similar setup.

 

Have you got a picture of the culprit? would be really interested in seeing what the little bugger looks like

I made sure I got that part when swapping my car to a manual. I wouldnt think it would jump teeth that easy without it though.