Interesting job, fairly straightforward and tons more room than my VR4! (2 less cams help too ) So only 2 things that went wrong, I pushed the passenger side cam seal in a little farther than I intended to and I somehow goofed on one little gold screw behind the cam gear so it got left out. I cant believe how loose the old belt was either, I guess 14 years will do that! The car only has 63K on it and it was all original parts, so I tossed in a new Timing belt, tensioner pulley, water pump, thermostat, hoses and drive belts. Im the second owner and shes found a good home now, cant wait to drive it more aggressively now that I know it wont blow up. Good thing I went easy on it, it probably would have let go.

 

clean *** max

nice

 

if that bolt goes on the plate behind the cam gear that attaches it to the head then it should be ok

 

check to make sure the other three gold screws are good and tight then. I've seen them come loose and wreak havoc on the timing belt. eek.

 

Yeah its the one that holds the back plate to the head. I somehow put the bolt in the hole for the front cover bolt which I realized way too late in the job to go back and try to fix. I torqued em down so the others arent going anywhere, thanks for the advice. Thanks plaman88, its not as clean as the sig makes it look though. I think I will get it detailed this summer since it hasnt been waxed in a LOOOOONG time. On the plus side its all original paint so it should come up nice. Anyone know if an SE exhaust will fit a GXE?

 

How long did it take you to complete the change?

 

I did it over the course of 2 days just because I didn't feel like killing myself. Total hours would be about 9, including 2 trips for tools/stuff, having to take the belt cover off again for a lost socket, etc.... Cutting out the nonsense, 6 hours would be a good estimate. Thats including everything from getting tools together until I turned the key and went to test drive. I also changed the cam seals, replaced the water pump, thermostat and all hoses.

 

I wanted to remove the belt cover to inspect it since I don't know it's condition at 100k miles and 13 years. It's supposedly changed. But it looks like it would take a long time to get to it and it's a tight area.

 

you could pull the upper cover in probably an hour.

 

This is one of those jobs I hope never to have to repeat.

 

What a P.I.T.A. So it would take another hour to put back on. This is going to take me all day I would think.

 

When I did my '91 a few years ago, it was the bane of my existence.

 

I wouldn't bother, if its got 30K on it or maybe 40, you wouldn't be able to tell if it was changed or not, you could test tension though. I would pull the 5 top bolts, pry the cover away enough to see if you have a trapezoidal or rounded tooth belt, order the belt and do the change. Its really not hard to do just time consuming. Did anyone else have some really sharp welding slag on the frame right by the pulleys?