Hello, brand new here!

So the problem I'm having goes like this- Hubby bought a 2005 300 with the 3.5L a few months back. Has been leaking some fluid so have been doing some maintenance on it to track down the leak. Before all this there was no check engine light.

Latest fix was I replaced the water pump, timing belt, and timing belt tensioner. In the process I was having difficulty with the timing belt so I got some help. It wasn't going smoothly and he got frustrated, wound up turning the right camshaft 3-4 times to try to line up the timing arrow while not turning the other. I wasn't watching at this point and he doesn't recall how many times exactly he fully turned them. Basically was trying to get the arrow lined up and every time it would go too far he would just keep turning to the right until the arrow came all the way around again. Hopefully that makes sense. At one point he would almost get the arrow lined up and then the camshaft would 'spring' forward about a quarter turn, so he would then turn to the right again to line up the arrow.

Finally got the timing belt on, started putting the rest together. He jumped in to help with putting the harmonic balancer back on and wound up chipping it by hitting it with a hammer to try to get it on... I ordered a new one and installed, then reassembled everything else. Car ran fine, but was still leaking. Hubby reported that the check engine light would periodically come on, sometimes flashing. He would pull over, sit for a bit, then turn back on and light would be gone.

At this point I now suspected a head gasket for the leak so I added some head gasket seal to the coolant to buy some time. Shortly thereafter, check engine light came on and stayed on, at times flashing.

Finally took it in and had the code read, came back as P0300 random/multiple cylinder misfire. Hoped it was just the spark plugs or a bad coil pack so ordered all new ones and installed. While I had all that apart I went ahead and did the upper and lower manifold gaskets. Put it all back together and I thought it ran really great, check engine light was now off and no more leaking! Hoped I had finally fixed it.

Unfortunately, a few days later the check engine light came back on and started flashing again. Checked the code and it is still a P0300. At this point I'm a bit frustrated with the car and constantly chasing down issues.

I suspect a problem with the timing, but I was also wondering if turning the one camshaft several times without turning the other would throw things out of sync? Or would just lining up the timing arrows have everything automatically where it needs to be? If that throws things out of sync is there a simple way to get it properly timed? Or am I looking at pulling even more of the engine apart? Or am I looking at just checking in to the timing and seeing if it just jumped a tooth or more? Any guidance is greatly appreciated!

 

Harris266


Where do you get your rockers? Or to be avcurate, who is the manufacturer?

I ordered a set of Ajusa rockers and lifters and have to say, for the price, I was dissapointed. The quality was uneven and there was even small metallic chips in couple of the individually packed lifters and rockers, tens of them inside couple of the plastic lockers.

There was also bad surfaces on pressure areas due to a quality of the steel they used. I had no choice but use them, 8 pairs. I also ordered an other 8 pairs from other brand. The Ajusas were around 300 € and the other ones were a little cheaper.

Why I ordered parts from different manufacturers going to the same car? Well, somehow I knew something like this would happend, the story of my life.... Some of the Ajusas were so questionable I considered using some of the old ones but I had no way to check and be sure about their true condition.

 

First I would recommend checking that the timing marks are properly aligned. The marks on the cams should be between the dots on the housing, favoring the center of the engine. Often the passenger side cam is just outside the marks being off by 1 tooth.
As far as turning the cams, did you turn them back to the mark or rotate them completely? It is possible the bend the valves if the cams are forced to rotate independently of the crank. Valves could hit the pistons but it would require significant force to rotate the cam and bend them.
Once the timing is verified and or corrected a compression test would be recommended to make sure the valves are ok.
Head Gaskets on these engines are very robust and are often misdiagnosed as a problem. Unless the engine was overheated they are probably OK