And am now hoping to find a easier way of checking to see if the timing belt has slipped without pulling off a large portion of the components on the belt side of the engine bay.

Anyone know of one, or am i gonna have to tear the damned thing apart?

 

if its a sohc then remove the small plug on the timing cover.....then remove the #1 spark plug and stick a wooden dowl rod into the spark plug hole so it sits on the piston....
manually crank the motor over by rotating the crank pulley bolt with a breaker bar.....
watch for the timing mark on the cam gear....it will be noticable through the hole in the cover...when it ligns up with the notch on the timing cover, check and see if the dowl rod is at the highest position possible..
this is just a rough way of telling, but it works

 

Really hate to question spud, but isnt it easier just to do the key method and pull an 11 if it skipped, or hook up a scanner rather then going through all that[&:]

 

its really not alot of work....but you might be able to find a code