Chrysler Repair: 1994 dodge caravan, manual roland, dodge caravan

Question
my wife was driving our van to work heard a what she described as a popping sound and then the van quit running/ it has the mitsu 3.0 in it i am thinking it may be the timing belt because it will not start up and all you can hear is it turning...sorry for no punctuation my shift keys are not working

thanks for your help

also id it is the timing belt would it damage the engine in anyway

Answer
hi tim,
no damage would result because there is no interference between the pistons and the valves. you can quickly tell two ways if it was the belt: there are round inspection covers on the front end of each bank of cylinders, held on by 3 bolts. so you can remove either cover and have a look. or you can take off the distributor cap and observe whether the rotor moves when the engine is cranked or not. if it is the belt you may want to replace the water pump at the same time as you do the belt because you are one step to getting the pump when you do the belt, whereas if the pump leaks in the near future you have to do the belt job all over again. are you thinking of doing this yourself? let me know and i can copy and snail mail the instructions from the shop manual.
roland
hey, i like not using the shift key!