In the middle of timing belt change.

[Monzaveo]

Just taking a break. Almost done.

I added new plugs and wires, and I'm gonna finish it off with an oil change.

I took lots of pictures and will whip up a write up of what I did and how I did it. shortly.

..More to come..

[Fighting Irish]

Awesome, good luck finishing the rest!

[Monzaveo]

See Below..

[Monzaveo]

Success!! It started back up on first try. No CEL's or leak's, knock on wood.

I had some confusion when putting the new plug wires on over cyl's 2-3 but I got it right.

There's also some tricky parts with the pulley alignment that none of the other write ups mention.

I used a little trick I came up with and it totally saved the day.

I also found that my factory belt tension was set loose or had gone loose.

I didnt want to change the plugs or wires, But at one point I wanted to take them out.

I ended up breaking a wire, so I replaced all the plugs and wires. I'm glad I did.

The factory plugs had worn out so the gaps were now at .60 instead of the original .44

I also gave the car an oil change and new airfilter.

It absolutely feels smoother and like the new parts regained 1 or 2 lost ponies.

I got some work to do, creating the write up. But I took lots of pictures.

I only missed getting pics of putting the gasket on the waterpump while not removing it completely and stretching the rear cover out of the way. But if you've gotten this far, you can probably figure that out.

I better get to work, and get this thing written up..

[khan4rtist]

just wondering how that write up is going. i havent seen it posted yet, i just got all the parts to do change my timing belt im planning to do it tomorrow

[Monzaveo]

Man I been slackin.

I'll get it posted. if you run into any trouble PM me.

I have a few tips I'll pass along.

[atcovan]

Glad things are going well! You note the belt had loosened per the indicator on the tensioner. I believe this stretching or inaccurate initial setting is most of the cause for failures. Belts just don't break or teeth simply shear off without a reason. If the belt tension is checked and adjusted every 40k miles, I bet changing can be delayed until around 100k miles or further, if the Gates belt is installed. Many cars can go 120k before replacement is recommended.

[Monzaveo]

Speaking of the loose belt......

I noticed I feel the car's hesitation problem more, now that I got the new belt on and tightened up right.

I wonder if the dealership loosened the belt tension a bit in order to help relieve the problem. (but maybe not, probably just stretch with age)

Also its not all that easy to get the tension correct, because as you rotate the belt to check the alignment marks....the tension changes and the pointer moves around.

It seems that when you find a compression stroke tension increases. With the plugs in the readings might be different.

I just got the pointers to sit near eachother (much closer than they were on the orig. belt) and left it at that.

My original gates belt was showing a rust color appearing through the pores in the teeth.
I wouldnt trust it past 70 - 80k or another winter time.

Another thing was, the Contitech belt I bought appears to be of much better quality than the gates.

I heard that seizing pulleys and or waterpumps, were a common cause of belt failures.

One guy on line says something about the plastic pulley wheels being inferier to aluminum, in that they'll get too hot when they are old and start to fuse to the belt, ruining the belt.