Well all its doigng is giving me a slight vibration at idle. and since the cam sensor runs off that, wouldnt my check engine light come on if it was out of line? And aside from the idle, are there any long term affects of it being off a tooth? Could it damage anything? Or could i line up the cam sensor to the current position of the oil pump?
Nope, won't come on. I had mine way the F$#k off and it never said a thing. Just shuddered once in a while on takeoff (manual trans). After a while it got worse, the power dipped off, the shuddering got worse too. At some point it blew away the electrode to the #3 cylinder on the drivers side. THAT threw a check engine light for a misfire, but my timing (camshaft position sensor, which also controls ignition timing) was so far off it thought it was cylinder #2, which was physically fine.
ultimately it wouldn't go past 60 no matter what gear or throttle position, and the engine tried to escape from under the hood upon attempting so. That's when I stopped driving the truck and tore it apart 3 more times before I finally fixed it.
I did a compression test but I'm doubtful of how accurate it is, maybe it did damage the engine. But my compression was around 80psi give or take for all cylinders, according to the gauge. Also on a scan reader I borrowed it claimed it was kicking my timing 40-50 degrees advanced.
After finally realizing there were SEVERAL marks on the gear I lined up the gear correctly and the truck has ran great. I say great, but not like new. It is slower, it still shudders and vibrates a little on startup but evens out after 5 seconds or so, power is still a bit less than before. I put about 20,000 miles on it while it was wonky.
Bottom line, fix it. Don't close it back up until those marks line up, and they will line up.
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