94-97 Accord F22B2 Timing Marks Not Aligning

I am a jack-of-all-trades working with a weekend warrior with no import experience on my 97 Accord CD7 with an F22B2 engine. The goal has been to replace the water pump, which has gone swimmingly, (aside from that jerk of a shoulder bolt on the bottom timing cover way in the back) but now as I’m putting new belts back on the car things don’t seem to be aligning properly.

A little more info: I was told a mechanic owned this car before me. There are white out marks on the balancer shafts, cam pulley, and crank with respective mating marks behind them. When we disassembled, we made sure to go TDC before taking the belts off, and it SEEMS like whoever worked on it last turned the crank (without the balancer sprocket) one single tooth out-of-phase relative to everything else, and there are two sets of marks on the crank to indicate this was intentional.

I’m following a popular guide from a popular Honda forum to do the replacement, which seems to coincide with my Haynes manual perfectly:

Step 18
Set the timing belt drive pulley so that piston No.1 is at TDC. To do this, align the dimple on the tooth of the timing belt drive pulley with the pointer on the oil pump.

Step 19
Make sure the camshaft pulley is still set so that piston No.1 is at TDC (refer to Step 12)

Step 20
Install the timing belt tightly in the following order. 1. Timing Belt Drive Pulley (Crankshaft) > 2. Tensioner > 3. Water Pump Pulley > 4. Camshaft Pulley. While doing this, be sure to keep the timing belt drive pulley and camshaft pulley at TDC.

Step 21
Loosen and retighten the adjusting nut to tension the timing belt.

Step 22
Install the timing balancer belt drive pulley, the lower cover, the crankshaft pulley and tighten the crankshaft pulley bolt (no need to torque it yet).

Step 23
Rotate the crankshaft pulley 5-6 turns counterclockwise. This allows the timing belt to position onto the pulleys.

Tip:
– Remove the spark plugs to make it easier to rotate the engine.

Step 24
Adjust the timing belt tension. Position piston No.1 at TDC (refer back to Step 12). Then loosen the adjusting nut 2/3-1 turn, rotate the crankshaft counterclockwise 3-TEETH on the CAMSHAFT and retighten the adjusting nut.

Step 25
Make sure the camshaft pulley and crankshaft pulley is still at TDC.
– For the camshaft, refer to Step 12.
– On the crankshaft pulley you’ll see two sets of marks around the outside edge. 1 set has 3 marks (circled in yellow), the other is only 1 mark by itself. The mark by itself should line up with the pointer on the lower cover (shown by red arrows).

If the camshaft pulley or crankshaft pulley do not line up at TDC, remove the timing belt and go back to Step 18 and start over again.

I’ve followed this procedure twice, and when I check the timing on the crankshaft pulley relative to the timing cover, I’ve ended up in the same spot twice; the timing cover marker is right in between the triple bump and single bump on the pulley.

Any ideas on what’s going on?