Timing belt change on 2006 Aveo LS: My new detailed write-up

[zchandran]

Hi everyone,

I took some pictures and did the write-up while changing my timing belt and water pump a few weeks ago. I have about 1,000 miles since and everything's running fine, so here it is:

http://www.zubinchandran.com/timing_belt_change.html

It's way too big to post here, so please download it or rehost or print or something. There's some stuff in there that wasn't in other write-ups I looked at, such as setting the belt tension correctly.

Let me know if you can think of other stuff to add in, hopefully it will help those who've never done a timing belt change before,

ZC

[Daox]

Timing Belt Change Walk-Through
2006 Chevy Aveo LS
by Zubin Chandran updated 9May10
revision 1

This document ("Timing belt change instructions for 2006 Chevy Aveo") by Zubin Chandran is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please distribute it freely as long as you do not modify it or use it for any commercial purpose.


This walk-through was put together in April 2010 while I changed the timing belt on my own car. While the manufacturer recommendation is for the timing belt to be changed at 60,000 miles, there are enough reports of early timing belt failures (and significant engine damage), that it's smart to do it at 50,000 mile intervals. I've written this as one long web page so that it's easy to print and/or save.

What you will need:

• Timing belt kit w/ idler and tensioner pulleys, I used ContiTech and was very happy with it[/*:m:229jp4g1]
• New water pump gasket (even if keeping old water pump)[/*:m:229jp4g1]
• New water pump (if you want to replace at same time)[/*:m:229jp4g1]
• Lisle 36880 DOHC lock tool (optional - makes things easier)[/*:m:229jp4g1]
• J42492-A water pump tool or Sealey VS090 (optional - you can use water pump pliers instead)[/*:m:229jp4g1]
• Usual sockets, ratchets, and wrenches, including breaker bar and 1/2" metric sockets[/*:m:229jp4g1]
• 5mm Allen socket bit (regular L Allen wrench will NOT give enough torque)[/*:m:229jp4g1]
• Torque wrench (recommended, but optional)[/*:m:229jp4g1]
• Floor jack, jackstand, and wheel chocks[/*:m:229jp4g1]
• Piece of wood or carpet to place between jack and engine[/*:m:229jp4g1]
• Fresh antifreeze[/*:m:229jp4g1]

Let's get started. You will want to position the car so that you have room to work on the passenger side by the front wheel, as well as directly in front of it. Loosen the lugnuts on the front right wheel, and then jack the car up until the wheel is about 3 inches off the ground. Support the car with a jackstand at this height and remove the wheel. Put chocks behind the rear wheels. This will give you enough room to work from both the top and side.

First, disconnect the negative battery cable with a 10mm wrench and tuck it out of the way. Then remove the air filter housing by disconnecting the hose and electrical connectors, and then removing the three easily accessible bolts that hold it in place. Instead of just moving it to the side, I would recommend you remove it completely and set it aside to get more room to work.

Next remove the splash shield, there are a total of 4 bolts. Two are as below, and the other two are on the bottom and easy to find.






You should now have the crankshaft pulley in front of you:





Next, remove the serpentine belt. Put a wrench on the tensioner pulley bolt as below. Pull on the wrench, this will remove tension on the serpentine belt and allow you to remove it.






The crankshaft pulley bolt can be most easily removed with an impact wrench (below). As you can see, you have plenty of room to get in there. If you don't have one, have someone step on the brake firmly so that you can get leverage, and use a breaker bar instead.






Keep a hand on the pulley after you remove the bolt (below). It will fall off as soon as the bolt is removed, and weighs a few pounds. After setting the pulley aside, reinstall the bolt - you will need it to turn the crankshaft.






We will now remove the engine mount. You will need to support the engine from the bottom first. As you can see from the picture below, I just rolled up an old rug and put that between my jack and the engine to spread out the force. A piece of wood works well too. You should jack up the engine just short of actually lifting it.






Now we are ready to remove the motor mount. First remove the three bolts holding down the retaining bracket:






And then remove the two nuts and one bolt from the engine mount itself:






Now this entire mount and bracket comes out as a unit. If you can't remove it easily, try slightly lowering and raising the engine using the floor jack. When you have just enough pressure on the engine, the mount will come right off. At this point I like to put a jackstand somewhere underneath the engine as a backup to the floor jack - if the floor jack fails, you don't drop the engine. My floor jack is 20 years old, so it's seen better days!






Now remove the bolts for the upper timing belt cover (in red below) and remove the upper cover which is outlined in yellow. I grabbed it at the bottom and pushed upwards to detach it. It took a little work to get it loose.






Similarly, remove the bolts to the lower timing belt cover, and remove that. That came out a lot easier than the upper one. When you set the covers aside, put the bolts in the appropriate holes to keep them straight.

Now we are ready to get everything aligned, for the most important step of all - MARKING THE TIMING BELT. That's in all caps for a very good reason. If you don't mark the timing belt before going further, you can move the camshafts and then the job becomes significantly more difficult. But once you complete the next step and mark the belt properly, you can always reset to where you were with minimum fuss.

You previously reinstalled the crankshaft pulley bolt, so use a 17mm socket and ratchet on it, and slowly turn it clockwise until the triangular mark is pointed directly downwards at the notch, as below:






Now look at the camshaft pulleys. They have notches in them as shown below. The notches should be pointing directly at each other as in the picture. If they are on the outside of each pulley and facing apart, rotate the crankshaft one more entire revolution and they will look like they do in the picture.






Time to double check:

• Are the notches on the camshaft pulleys pointing directly to each other?[/*:m:229jp4g1]
• Is the mark on the crankshaft pulley still pointing directly downwards to the notch?[/*:m:229jp4g1]

If so, you're ready to mark the belt. Using whiteout or white paint, mark the top tooth on each camshaft pulley and the corresponding valley in the timing belt that it sits in. Draw the marks like this:






Similarly, mark the belt at the crankshaft notch, like this. Note that I mark the center of each tooth, I find this easiest.






Once your belt is marked, you are ready to remove it. If you have a water pump tool, it is possible to work around the inner mount, the piece with two nuts sticking straight up. But removing the inner mount is very easy, so do it now to make your life easier. There are four bolts holding it in place, in these approximate locations (the picture is after the mount was removed, for clarity).





Before removing the belt, you can use a DOHC lock tool to hold the cams in place. I use the Lisle 36880 which sells for about $35.

Now loosen the three bolts that hold in the water pump. These are 5mm Allen bolts. You will need to use an Allen socket bit and 3/8" ratchet to turn them - you will not be able to get enough torque with an L allen wrench unless you put something on to extend it. You will be tightening and loosening these bolts several times, so spend $3 to get a socket bit - you'll be happy you did. To rotate the water pump, you can use the specialty water pump tool J42492-A, which costs about $150, or regular water pump pliers. I bought the equivalent tool, the Sealey VS090, for about $50 and it worked very well. Either way, rotate the water pump to relieve tension on the belt. If you don't have the lock tool installed, the camshaft pulley will move, that is normal. You can now remove the belt.

Water pump replacement:

If you want to replace the water pump as part of the procedure, you can now do so. To do it the correct way, remove the camshaft pulleys and then the inner timing belt cover. Then remove the three water pump bolts and the water pump comes right out. Make sure you put a new gasket on when putting in the new pump.

Note: It is possible to replace the water pump without removing the camshaft pulleys, if you are willing to work at it. Remove the bolts that hold in the inner timing belt cover so that it is loose. Now bend the bottom of the cover out so that you get enough clearance to remove the water pump. You will remove it in the direction of the rear of the car and down. Note that this takes some patience, and a lot of manipulating the water pump into just the right position to get it out. This is what I did and it worked fine with no damage to the inner timing belt cover.

After you have the water pump back in place, get the three bolts back in but leave them loose for right now.

New belt installation:

On a flat work surface, place the new belt on top of the old one so that they line up exactly. Mark the new belt in the same locations as the old one. Now count the number of teeth between the marks on the old belt and make sure you have exactly the same number of teeth between the marks on the new one. The last step is a bit overkill, but you'll be 100% sure that you have everything just right.

Put the new belt in place and make sure your marks line up exactly before moving to the next step.

Properly tensioning the new belt:

The tensioner pulley makes it easy to get exactly the right tension on your new belt. First, familiarize yourself with the tensioner pulley. I show it here out of the car:




As you apply tension on the belt, pointer A will gradually move towards pointer B, and with even more tension, move on to notch C.

Okay, on to the actual work...

With the water pump tool or pliers, rotate the water pump until pointer A lines up with notch C. Tighten the water pump down. Make sure your markings on the belt and pulleys still line up exactly! If not, you need to remove the belt and try again. Then using a 1/2" ratchet or breaker bar, rotate the crankshaft pulley clockwise exactly two turns. When you are done, the crankshaft notch should again be pointing straight down, and the two camshaft pulley notches should be facing directly at each other. Obviously your markings will no longer match up. You are doing this to evenly distribute the tension in the belt.

Now, loosen the water pump bolts. Once again using the water pump tool, relieve tension until pointer A aligns exactly with pointer B. Tighten up the water pump bolts. You are done!

Putting everything back:

The rest is straight forward. Replace first the lower and then the upper timing belt covers. Replace the engine mount. Install the three bolts that hold the mount to the frame and the two bolts and one nut that hold it to the engine. Tighten the two bolts and nut that hold it to the engine to 40Nm. Then tighten the three bolts that hold it to the frame to 55Nm.

Put the crankshaft pulley back and tighten the bolt to 95Nm. Then turn it another 30 degrees plus 15 degrees You can either put the car in gear or get someone to step on the brake to keep the crankshaft from turning while you do this. Finally, install the serpentine belt, the shield, the wheel, and finally the air filter housing and it's associated hose and cables. Don't forget the negative battery cable.

Fill the cooling system with new antifreeze and crank it up. Make sure you check for leaks regularly during the first few hours of driving.

[Daox]

Very nice write up Zubin!

I hope you don't mind I reposted it here.

[zchandran]

Thanks, Daox! Looks like it uploaded fine.

[serega12]

Very good write up guys. A lot better one than I've seen on some other site... After reading this I might actually do it myself when the time comes for it...

[orgkaos]

The time is now for me and I was trying to do it earlier with another write up and got slightly lost, plus didn't have another jack or stands to use the one I had the car up on or anything to hold the motor up, but this write up is exactly what I need to tackle it later, possibly tomorrow. Thanks for the write up and great job. Wish me luck.

[byron84]

Are there major differences between 04 to 06?
I will be doing mine very soon, and if I can I will definitely make use of your write up.

[ontarian_frog]

Are there major differences between 04 to 06?
I will be doing mine very soon, and if I can I will definitely make use of your write up.

No difference whatsoever.

[reddemonx92]

How much was the tensioner with the idler and tensioner? I already had to change my tensioner around 30k mile mark so its still relatively new so itll be extra tensioner. But im at 50k miles already so will be needing to do it later this year

[dragonwarrior2016]

Thanks for posting it I pray I never have to do this but I know with your instructions I can do it. Your step by step instructions along with the pictures are way better than all the other instruction sites.