I have a '97 Ranger 2.3l w/ 130kmiles
I have good mechanical knowledge, understand engines well enough, but have never changed a timing belt.

I started this project a little over a week ago, but to make the story short I put in a brand new rear timing belt cover last weekend just to find out that the brand new belt won't line up.

The crankshaft is at 0 degrees, the diamond on the oil pump pulley is aligned with the diamond on the rear cover, and the arrow on the camshaft pulley is lined up with th arrow on the rear cover.

Now when installing the belt; starting at the crankshaft to the oil pump lines up perfectly then while keeping the belt tight when I get to the camshaft pulley a tooth of the belt lines up right on top with a tooth of the pulley.

I've adjusted it in both directions, but either way the arrow on the camshaft pulley clearly does not line up.
While holding the new belt side by side with the old belt, the old one is perhaps an 1/8 inch longer, I just assumed that to be from years of use.

The part number from the new belt reads "TX276"

Thanks in advance for any help.

Joe

And here are some pictures I took just to see how far the camshaft is off by

Click Here

what brand belt is that . I could not find a "tx276" Did you count the teeth?

__________________
2004 Ext Cab, 4WD, 4.0, Auto, 154k. (4.0 engine is out of a 2009 Ranger w/96k) ( as of 7/1/2017)

2004 Ranger, Ext Cab, 2WD, 3.0, 5 speed , 4WABS, crank windows, no cruise, Edge 116k.(6/5,2014) (SOLD).
1999 Ford Ranger, Reg Cab, 2.5, 5 speed, 2WD, no AC, 150k (SOLD).

The brand is a "Master Pro", the cheap brand carried by Checker auto, near me, but aka Schucks(when I lived in Oregon), or Kragen(when I lived in California)
It's actually the least expensive belt I could find because of major money issues lately, but looking at other brands from other parts suppliers websites the "276" is most always included in the part number somewhere.
This was all part of the research I did online yesterday to verify I had the correct belt.

But more importantly with my research yesterday I found 2 threads on other forums(or perhaps even this one, I used Google) that helped greatly.

To better explain I need to go into my longer story;
My belt never broke initially, rather one day while the truck was running I heard intermittent "tapping" from under the hood, I determined it was the timing belt and proceeded to replace it.

I have a Haynes book and followed the steps carefully, although I do not have an impact gun/wrench, so removing the crankshaft drivebelt pulley I had to use some good 'ol ingenuity(involving a rope wrapped around the pulley).

Unfortunately my great idea resulted in the rear timing belt cover breaking into several pieces, so I did my best to use the pieces to line up all my marks and I put everything back together, started the engine and heard significant "ticking".

I shut off the engine right away and asked a different forum what it may be, at which point the asholes over there scared me shitles about the damage I may have done, called me a moron and pretty much said they were Gods compared to me.

So the truck sat while I gained courage and saved money and also had to buy a new rear cover from the Ford dealer, I put the new rear cover on(which was the most difficult part of this whole project), the belt didn't line up and then I came here with my question.

Well along with my research yesterday I read a couple different guys had the same problem with the "ticking" sound after changing the belt, apparently it's caused from not priming the oil pump before starting the engine, but can be fixed by driving the truck about a mile or so.

So that was exactly what I did last night, put everything back together, ran the truck (after it warmed up) through a whole range of RPM's while I drove it through the neighborhood and at 1.4 miles the "ticking" sound could no longer be heard.

Sorry about going so long in one thread, but I did want to share this experience I gained so hopefully others can know now too.
I also wanted to point out that I have always gone to Forums for any different problem I may have, but now I know there are some guys on Forums (with beatiful black vintage corvettes for sale in their avatar) who only wish to ruin peoples "can do" spirits.

Thanks
Joe