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Visually examine your timing belt drives for these top 6 failure-causing problems and it could
help to prevent your drives grinding to a halt, avoiding unscheduled downtime.

1. Misalignment

Misalignment is one of the main causes of timing belt drive failure. Excessive or uneven tooth
wear, belt tracking and tensile failure can all be attributed to misalignment. By checking and
aligning your shafts and timing pulleys you can increase the life of your timing belts and save
yourself lots of downtime.

2. Excessive load
If the timing belt teeth are shearing, excessive load is more than likely the cause. Tensile failure
and even excessive tooth wear can also be caused by excessive load or shock loads, although the
latter is less likely. To cure this problem you’re going to have to redesign the drive.

3. Under-tensioned Belt
Tooth skipping, also called ‘ratcheting’, is probably down to your belt being under-tensioned.
Under-tensioning can also cause excessive or uneven tooth wear and excessive drive noise so use
a tension gauge to set the correct tension on those timing belts!

4. Weak drive structure

If your drive is vibrating excessively or your timing belts are suffering from apparent belt stretch,
you could have a weak drive structure. Try reinforcing the drive structure and you could stop the
problem.

5. Damaged or worn pulleys

Damaged or worn timing pulleys will substantially reduce belt life. Worn teeth will cause belt
wear and/or damage. Nicks or gouges can cut the belt. Inspect and replace pulleys that show
signs of wear.

6 Debris in the timing pulley or drive

It’s the most overlooked, but debris can cause a multitude of problems for your timing belt &
pulley. Dirt on the teeth can abrade the belt and oil can attack the belt materials. Use a stiff brush
to clean off rust and dirt. Wipe clean of oil and grease. Debris can account for any of the above
reasons for timing belt failure – so go clean those pulleys and fit a shield to that drive!

A timing belt will eventually fail by loss of teeth in what’s considered normal wear, any other
failure reason should be considered abnormal. For a full list of possible failures and the
corrective action to take, consult our Timing Belt Troubleshooting Guide to check your belts &
timing pulleys.