doesn't sound the way it used to

I'm posting this message as a last ditch effort before having to pay full
blown shop prices. Given the fact that a mechanic won't even look at a
car anymore for less than a few hundred bucks I'd rather deal with the
grease and broken knuckles if I could just figure out what I had to do.
My 89 lebaron w\2.5Lturbo quit a few days ago and won't start again. I
don't know how many people reading this may or may not have experienced
what it's like to have his\her car die and then, upon turning the key in
the ignition, the engine "CRANKS" (NOT START OR RUN) over, sounding
differently than it had all it's life. And by different I don't mean low
battery or dragging starter kind of different, I mean the sound where you
think to yourself "oh sh__, my timing belt has broken or slipped". That's
the kind of sickly sound my engine makes now when cranking it over. And
basically that's the best starting point I have to work with right now.
ALL OTHER SUSPECTS have been checked and cleared. Gas, spark, battery,
etc. It's obvious that the bottom half of the engine isn't jiving with
the top half but I can't figure out how or why. I've checked the belt and
re-checked the belt and checked TDC with corresponding mark and then did it
over again with no results. Any ideas about what to do next? Faulty
sensor? The top half of chrysler's 2.5L engine is designed to never bump
heads with the bottom half which I'm thankful for, yet is it likely that a
valve may be otherwise damaged? Thanks for any input.

 

When you checked the marks for cam and crank, did you go the next step and
remove the distributor cap and make sure its at number one cylinder?

 

From your description it sounds like the timing belt broke. When was it
last changed? Have you looked under the cover

 

Good. Suffer. I'm not sure why you post here; you don't listen when people
tell you how to fix your car.

 

I checked the timing by bringing #1 to TDC on the compression stroke and
then verifying that the cam-gears' identifying mark (notch or whatever its
called) was in the center of the little open window on the timing belt
cover. I did have a little trouble getting the jist of exactly where TDC
was. I used a wooden dowel to find the pistons' top height (I suppose
everyone does) but I have a hard time gauging the exact center of where
the piston-ends its stroke and begins the journey back down again, as
there is about a 1/4" (one tooth worth) of play where the dowel sits
level. It's hard to decide if the belt jumped one tooth or if its' at
home. Sound stupid? This whole thing has made me stupid. Maybe I'll
just buy a moped.

 

Sounds like a plan!!

 

You might pull all the plugs and then verify that each cylinder "sucks
and blows" when you crank it over. That's the way we diagnosed the
problem in my sons 83 Chrysler E Class, 4 cylinder when it broke a rod.
eldred

 

Try a compression tester before you do anything more. If the compression is
okay, then your noise, whatever it is, is happening outside the confines of
block/heads.

You could have a huge intake leak, for instance. Maybe it sucked in a
mouthful of gasket!