Greg Fletcher
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Yes, bad things can happen. Your case may be completely different, but here's what happened to me many moons ago- I noticed my engine was acting strange, meaning that it was losing power, occasional backfiring and then seemingly going back to normal again. I checked the distributor and all looked fine, but the timing was off and I knew deep down something was terribly wrong. Just looking at the car, I couldn't figure out what was going on and I figured I'd better start taking things apart and inspecting since driving would be ill advised at this point. I pulled the timing belt off and started with the auxillary housing. Low and behold- the stupid pulley bolt had worked its' way out (but not enough to notice by eye), causing the the shaft key to almost come apart (but not quite, creating a most unpleasant "variable timing" effect), messing up the end of the shaft and the pulley. Both had become ovaled and messed up big time. They were on their way to being converted to pure energy. I didn't even see this until I had the removed the pulley! I had to replace the shaft, pulley and keys and it then ran perfectly. Besides torqueing to the correct 25 lbs (which I did before anyways), I always add a drop of Loctite on the pulley bolt threads. That funky, tapered allen head bolt used on the shaft is notorious for coming loose.
I'd say worth your time to look over and check everything before driving it any more. I'm guessing it's something simple along these lines.
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