This is my second time replacing the belt, I had everything apart, lined up all the marks on the new belt (from nissan) and put it back together. It didn't start. I took it apart and double-checked everything. Sometime on this second try the crank got turned in relation to the cams and if this can bend the valves I may have done it. At no time did I crank the engine without the belt on or anything idiotic like that, but can turning the cams or crank in relation to each other to position the belt bend the valves? What else could it be?
You'd feel a lot of resistance when he valves got in the way of the pistons and I'd hope most people wouldn't force the engine through and bend valves by hand. Are you sure you used the right marks on the right pulleys? The dashed one goes to the pass side cam. If you installed the belt wrong and tried to start it you could easily have bent the valves.
I was pretty sure that this isn't an interference engine. It's the VG30E. Indeed I had used the wrong marks, however the haynes and chilton do not really specify as far as I could tell. In fact basically, the procedure is incorrect. For anyone interested, all that is required to change the timing belt on VG30E engines (pathfinder, maxima, pickup, etc...) is to remove the belts and the housings, pull off the vibration damper, and switch the belt. Removing the top half of the engine intake isn't necessary as the valves do not touch the pistons. (I personally checked this when I had the cylinder head off years ago to replace it due to accidentally drilling out a stud a little too far) So you can just use a 14mm socket to twist the cams into position. Two morons at two different dealerships told me that they were "positive" that I had bent "at least 3" valves. I fixed the belt and fired it right up. By this time I had probably twisted the crank and cams around enough to bend all the valves :D I'm a believer that these are good vehicles as long as they're serviced properly. Unfortunately I've had nothing but bad experiences letting other people turn the wrenches. 5 broken tire lugs, jiffy lube left the air cleaner housing unhooked and I drove to vegas and back in a rainstorm and burned interior carpet due to overheating. (they refuse to pay and have no insurance) Tim Dahle Nissan of Murray, Utah was able to charge me 200 bucks to fix something that was not broken and misdiagnose the problem. No one seems to be able to find all 13 grease zerks. The only gripe with the truck itself that I have is the exhaust manifolds popping off the studs unexpectedly, but it seems to be remedied by not running the studs all the way into the cylinder heads. Well, my next project is to replace the center link and idler arm, hammer out a couple dents and hopefully she'll be good for another 200,000 on top of the 200,000 already :). Thanks again steve.
The earlier VG30's will bend valves so I assumed these would as well. And yes even on the interference engines there is no reason to remove the rocker arms to replace the belt. I've done hundreds of them and never have. You shouldn't need to rotate the engine if you line up everything before you remove the belts.
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