Well, I'm not afraid to say it. That's brilliant!! Will do. Thanks a ton. Wish my slow but would have thought of that. There's some new cheap tools for my box.

 

Since the topic of timing job methods and tricks is the thing here, I discovered another easy way to do this.

DISCLAIMER: This method may not work on every engine but it has worked on mine twice so far.

This method requires no hardware or tools to hold the cam gears. Biggest things are to wait till the engine is stone cold, leave the spark plugs installed (Not sure if this part is actually necessary but it's what I've done and it works), and to advance the timing marks half a tooth before doing work on the timing system. once you have the marks half a tooth advanced, place a crowbar or flathead screwdriver underneath the tensioner arm and block, apply upward leverage to the tensioner arm so that the pin holes on the tensioner line up and place the pin in the tensioner( You can use a small allen head wrench if you are missing the pin or skip this if you're installing a new tensioner. ), unbolt the tensioner, apply leverage to the tensioner arm and remove the tensioner. Gently remove the belt.

When you are ready to replace the belt, start at the bottom and work your way around the belt idler and the driver side cam gear, ensuring as much slack is taken out of the belt as possible the whole way through, route the belt under the water pump and over the passenger side cam gear, once again ensuring as much slack is taken out as possible, next, route the belt over the tensioner to complete the loop. Keeping tension on the tensioner arm, place both tensioner bolts through the tensioner bolt holes, gently apply enough upward tension on the tensioner arm with your leverage tool to slide the tensioner into the holes on the block, at a certain point you can let the tensioner arm rest on the lip of the tensioner if you need a break, otherwise tighten the bolts enough that the tensioner arm wouldn't slip off the lip of the tensioner should something happen, then gently apply upward leverage to the tensioner arm and slip the tensioner into its intended position, release tension and tighten the bolts to spec, pull the pin and you're done. Here is a picture of where to apply that upward tension I'm talking about, in my example, I used a flat head screwdriver:
NOTE: Always rotate the engine completely over 2~3 times to ensure timing marks line up.

I have done this twice and have had no issues, ofc using the washer method mentioned earlier in conjunction with this would be even better but it's not absolutely necessary. I even replaced both timing pullies and water pump the other day without having the cam gears rotate at all. I also discovered a fancy trick for replacing the timing tensioner pulley. Tighten the bolt just enough that you can move the pulley around without it moving on it own, rotate the pulley so that the two holes on the front of the pulley are on the bottom right corner of the bolt hole, they should be in line with the angle of the tensioner when it's installed(In fact I recommend leaving the tensioner with its pin installed for this step.) Once the holes are lined up, rotate the pulley about half an inch upwards and tighten the bolt to spec (36~46Ft-Lbs). As you tighten this bolt, it will rotate the pulley into alignment, You may have to try this a couple times to ensure it lines up right. Here is a picture of the proper alignment of the pulley:



 

Wow,just notices this. Im suprised to see all that when you say it looked clean. What did you end up doing. Fixing it a and keeping it or bailing?