Timing Belt Change, Do It at Home

[mrnickleye]

Well, it happened to me, and I am pretty anal about regular maintenance. My T-belt broke while I was on vacation 200 miles from home.

I was doing 80mph in the fast lane heading south on the I-15 (San Diego, Calif). Bam!!! Tach dropped to zero. I thru it into neutral, and put on the flashers. It was 1 pm on a Thursday, so traffic was not too bad. People let me over to the right side.

I called a tow truck, and got towed the 3 more miles I needed to go. I called around and found a belt at Kragen's.

I borrowed from them a crank puller set, and purchased a
1/2" dr breaker bar and 19mm socket.

I always carry an assortment of tools.

I changed the belt curbside in about 5hrs. It would have only taken 1 1/2 hrs at home with more tool options. I have a compressor and full rollaway. And... getting the a/c bracket bolts loose with a short 3/8" dr ratchet was hell. Got a bit cut up on this job. My back was sore for 3 days.

So...nobody had the tensioner, so I had to reuse it, which was sounding like an old roller skate.

I redid the whole job on Tuesday back at the shop. Had to order the tensioner. I also replaced the a/c tensioner pulley (was only 1 year old, and already bad). Factory one lasted 160k. Put in new crank seal too.

All parts cost me $120. We would charge you about $360 for the whole job at the shop.

Point is....you can do it yourself in about 3hrs with hand tools following the steps I'll give, and its best to do it at home, not out on the road.

Its after midnight now, so I'll lay out the quickest proceedures, and everything you'll need, in the next post, tomorrow??