1988 244 Timing Belt, will it walk?

[DavidOswald]

I just finished the 14 months process of replacing the timing belt, water pump, and spark plugs on my 88 244 with 290,000 miles.

It's a long story but I had a leak from the thermostat housing and decided to replace that, the water pump, radiator, timing belt, and spark plugs.

I got this all done in a day, put it all back together and the Volvo idled great for 30 minutes. Decided to do a test drive and before driving reved up the engine. The timing belt slipped off. Bad tensioner pulley.

I replaced the tensioner pulley, and put it all back together and it wouldn't start. Thus began a year long saga. Finally had a mechanic friend take a look. When the belt slipped off, the pin connecting the cam shaft pulley to the cam shaft sheared off, resulting in the cam shaft almost being 180 degrees out of alignment.

After getting the timing belt back on correctly and before installing the timing belt cover, fan, and v-belts; we watched the timing belt. It rides right on the edge of the camshaft, actually about 1 mm over in places, right on the line in other places. It doesn't walk at idle, it doesn't walk when reved up.

I have since take three test drives, up to 70 mph for 4 miles. After all three I checked the position of the belt. Hasn't moved, but still not centered on the camshaft.

I'm doing all of this from a garage I don't own. My house is about a 35 minute drive away at 70 mph. I'm really worried it's going to walk off when I drive home and break down again.

My mechanic friend thinks that is just where it's going to ride and I should be fine.

Could be the tensioner, but I am pretty sure it's not. Could be a missing spacer on the camshaft, I'm at least the third owner and I don't know how many times the belts been replaced (last time was at 200,000 miles). Could just be worn pulleys that are just are not flush.

Is it possible that timing belt on the camshaft is just going to ride right on the edge and not move from there and everything is fine? Or did I screw something up?

Photos.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/2cZrL5s1nR2RYwdr9

[volvolugnut]

In my opinion, if the belt did not move in your trial runs, it will stay in place. Just drive it but look at it occasionally for reassurance.
volvolugnut

[matthew1]

Here's David's photo from his link. Added for posterity.

External hosted images will disappear with 99% certainty given a long enough timespan – based on the 23 years of this forum – so I like to grab and upload to MVS server.