I am about midway done with changing the timing belt & water pump on my 99 Toyota, which features a 6-cylinder 5VZ-FE engine. After getting the front timing cover off, I noticed that the passenger-side cam pulley has a raised rear lip, but the driver-side pulley does not. What is the reason for this difference?
The raised rear lip is used to align the timing belt. It only needs one of these to keep the belt aligned, thus the difference.