’94 4Runner, 3VZE. Long time lurker.

Drive belts were making a racket, so I pulled them off and found my fan pulley bracket was seizing up. Replacing the bracket I checked my timing belt and found a mess… It’s walking off the cam sprockets and shredding longitudinally. Dust everywhere. Back of fan bracket is grooved where TB is grinding against it and disintegrating. I’ve lost a good quarter inch of belt width.

Local auto shop did TB and water pump 50k and 7 years ago. Shouldn't be this worn. I’ve cleaned everything up and am replacing the belt (and water pump) but reluctant to button up before I diagnose what is pulling the belt off the sprockets.

Dug around the forums. This dude had similar shredding, but my sprockets are orientated properly, with one flange facing out. Any other ideas?





fan bracket

 

Do you have the Timing Belt Guide? http://web.archive.org/web/201204051...67timingbe.pdf It's held on by the Crankshaft Pulley/Harmonic Balancer, so you might have already removed it.

Is your Timing Belt Tensioner working? If you can push the idler pulley with your fingers, it's not.

 

I had almost exactly this belt situation after buying my 3.0. PO did timing belt but one of the 10mm bolts holding the plate behind upper middle pulley onto the larger metal shield had loosened itself and logged into the plastics against the belt. Mine was actually melted into the outer plastics cover. Shredded the belt identically. If you’re going in there it’s a good time to pull all of those one at a time and dab a lil blue Loctite for safety. I would say belt is compromised though please replace that if you can.

 

@scope103 I’ve got the guide, removed it with the rest. Tensioner seems to be working - push rod doesn’t budge when I plunge it against floor - but I’ll replace it to be sure.

@livergang Interesting. I'll check the bolts.

Thanks for the input, fellas.