No. Once the key was damaged the only way to clear the path for a new one was to remove the gear. I purchased a new key, so the next timing belt change should hopefully be easier.

 

Not quire sure what you're referring to when you say "no".

My point was that you shouldn't have been trying to remove either the gear or the key. Others said the same in this thread. It wasn't necessary UNLESS you were trying to remove the seal.

 

Okay. I thought you had to remove the large gear to remove the timing belt from the smaller gear. Lesson learned. Thanks:-)

 

No problem. Just trying to help. And this can help the next guy.

What you do is you loosen the adjusting nut, you push the tensioner in and tighten the nut then the belt comes right off. You just need to loosen the tension enough to pull it off the gear.

 

Another way to look at it; you see the damage to the little bit of the key that's visible. Then you don't know how much the key is damaged back where you can't see it. Personally, after seeing the mangled end of the key, I'd want to convince myself that the rest of the key is OK.

 

lol. I got the timing belts back on and now ready to put the harmonic balancer on.
If I remember correctly it doesn't go all the way on. Is this correct? when I took it off it looked like it was half way on the shaft.

Thanks!

 

Yes, IIRC the end of the crankshaft is a few mm short of being flush with the hub of the pulley.

Each sprocket or pulley slides on & hits solidly to the previous sprocket. I don't recall any of them being questionable whether they had slid on all the way.

 

Timing belt project is done! I also added new valve cover gaskets and NGK ZFR5FIX-11 plugs. I could only get mine on about 3/4 by hand. Hopefully when I torqued the bolt on it forced it the other 1/4 of the way. It lined up fine with the alternator and power steering belts so it should be fine. The car started fine and idled smooth. I even drove it on the highway at 70 mph and all was well. The only difference I noticed later was that there is a slight hiccup during idle at times. My guess is that this is a plug issue and has nothing to do with the timing belt?

 

A good tb cleaning can't hurt anything. From there this might be a bit of an "idle re-learn" going on.