I changed the timing belt & water pump on my 1996 2.5 & now I have a knock, I hope its not the valves kissing the pistons. I checked & double checked the timing before I reassembled, but did I miss something?

Is it possible for all three timing marks to be lined up & still not be at TDC on this engine?

And on the tensioner pulley it calls for a special tool to postion the pulley correctly as it is oblonged & can be moved around before tightning it.
I tightened it when I had it in position so I could pull the allen holding the tensioner pin easily back & forth before removing it.

Is it still possible that the timing was incorrect?

 

Was this a maintenance replacement ???
Or was the timing belt broken ???

 

this was a maintenence replacement. we pulled the engine out as we also had an oil leak at the rear seal &
it had overheated so we decided to change the water pump since we couldn't figure out anything but a low water condition.
I just pulled the cam timing covers & rotated the crank to TDC & the timing marks are all dead on.
I'm baffled. Now it's got me wondering if I did something wrong on the flywheel.

 

we did a compression check before we pulled the engine & got 145 at all cylinders & no bleed off.
we also did a cooling system pressure test & it held at 25psi for 20-30 min.

 

Ok more updates, I've got my fingers crossed..I found the bolt holding the crank position sensor loose allowing the sensor to touch the flywheel. Am in process of reassembling the timingcovers & stuff & hoping to restart with any more noises.

 

That took care of it, starts now & runs without all the noise, although it still seems to have a roughness especially at idle. I'm so tired of screwing with this car I think its time to take it to a shop for some diagnostics.

 

Glad to here it wasn't a bad fix