05 Vibe GT 2ZZGE - crank pulley out of alignment?

[sadavis80]

My 05 GT shredded it's main belt about a week ago and I had to be TOWED home (sucks). I assumed the belt was just WORN OUT - bought a new one and installed it the next day.. It IMMEDIATELY 'ran over' and looped offset off the PS pulley. After SIGNIFICANT exploration .. including 'inching' the engine over, by hand, the belt continued to 'run over' - off the edges of the PS pulley. NOW, I have extracted the belt again and after CAREFUL STUDY, have determined that the MAIN CRANK PULLEY is offset ('in front of' - to PS side) from the other pulleys (both idlers, PS, Alt, AC) by > 1/4". The main pulley appears to be 'tight' and in place.. just offset.
This engine has ~200k on it, but has been FLAWLESS since I bought the car in 2014. Other than the OIL LEAK - presumably from the timing chain cover - have replaced the TC tensioner/Oring 3 times.. no improvement at all - replaced the valve cover gasket - leaves no other alternative than the timing chain cover...
Other than the oil leak, it has been STELLAR for the last 5 years. I have replaced the main belt once.. about 3 years ago.. No issues of note.
Now .. after the shredded belt - I see the main pulley is offset to the 'front' (passenger side) by a significant amount. There appears to be no 'slack' in the crankshaft.. in fact, I cranked it and DROVE it into my shop after being towed home... and noted NOTHING - no extra noise or anything out of what I would expect from a motor with NO MAIN BELT.
When last driving it, I noted 'a sound' - followed by loss of PS during my next turn - and realized immediately I was IN TROUBLE - surmising that I had just lost the main belt. I pulled into an autoparts store right away and found (knew I would find) the 'gone' belt. There was NO WAY I was going to be able to fix that in that parking lot .. even if they DID have a new one in stock.. which they did NOT, of course.

Now home.. I'm at a loss to explain the misalignment of the main pulley.
My first thought was that the pulley was working it's way off the crank.. but that seems incredibly UNLIKELY since it appears to still be secure - no movement and tight - nut to pulley. I have removed the tensioner (broke the 'nut' completely off trying to release it due to the overlap of the belt and the lip of the PS pulley. Had to 'rake it off' the tensioner pulley to free and remove the belt to properly VIEW the pulley alignment.. first I had noticed the misalignment.

Anyone out there ever experience this ??
Any thoughts about what might have happened??

Presuming I'm in for a 'new' salvage 2zz if I can find one. - Does a replacement 2zz REQUIRE a "matched ECU" if I end up going that way?

Today I'll probably see if I can remove the main pulley - was just too tired yesterday after fooling with it all day.
Steve

[joatmon]

bizarre, can't think of how that suddenly developed.

but got to ask, are you sure you routed the belt correctly?

belt1.jpg (14.89 KiB) Viewed 1140 times

[andrewclaus]

The pulley is also a vibration damper. Perhaps it has failed, though it wouldn't be visible like that. I replaced the pulley on my 1ZZ last year due to a crankshaft seal failure and oil leak, and it was pretty easy and relatively inexpensive. I would try that right away. Maybe something else will become visible during the work.

[sadavis80]

joatmon - yep.. have the factory svc manual out with a nice picture. Pretty sure the one YOU posted is NOT for the 2ZZ, but the routing of the belt is still the same. The only real difference is the angle of the tensioner.

Andrew - Already in my plan, but was hoping someone else had run across this before. I've had the pulley off before and it wasn't difficult at all. I did get down and LOOK at it - LOOKED fine and no movement in any direction - going to go up in a few minutes and take it off, but I don't really expect to find anything.

Steve

[sadavis80]

FIGURED IT OUT!!
As I sat down to remove the front pulley, I really LOOKED at the pulley, it suddenly didn't look 'quite right'. Looking closer, I realized that the 'harmonic balancer' part had SLIPPED on the pulley part... just about the right amount ~1/4". I got the pulley off and studied it.. wondering how loose it was..held it ~2" above the floor and dropped it .. in TWO drops everything was aligned properly again - that's PRETTY LOOSE. No idea WHEN it first let loose, but probably only a few seconds before the belt shredded to tell me 'sumpin was up'.

Found a new one at NAPA .. and they even recognized the 2ZZGE engine code. SO I have dropped my search for a new engine and am instead focusing on fixing the OIL LEAK (timing chain cover gaskets) and mods to the belt tensioner to replace the blasted 'nut' that I snapped off trying to get the belt off .. and a new belt since I treated the new belt I just installed pretty badly getting it off the idler pulley by just prying it off. I stopped short of just CUTTING it off .

Just FYI.

New topic... coming up...

Steve