Timing Belt not staying in marks

[WyrTwister]

No personal experience , but Have read of using cable ties / wire ties as cam locks .

God bless
Wyr

[djmarch]

Just a note on this subject. You can be off a tooth without damaging a valve or piston. I know because this happened to me while changing a belt a few months back. Thought I had everything aligned, rotated the cam gears with a breaker bar, and buttoned everything up. Went to start the car and it lugged at idle. Tore it all down again and found out my intake cam gear was off a tooth from being aligned. So I went and bought a Lisle twin cam locking tool that I recommend anyone who does this in their garage to get one. When I changed the belt previously, I didn't have this tool, and had no problems. It's very difficult to do without one because as soon as you remove that belt, one of your cam gears is going to move. The trick, (I think anyway), is to make sure that belt is tight across the top of the gears. Pull it as tight as you can. In my case, I marked the valley between each gears tooth the cog of the belt rests in.