Timing belt/water pump change – my experience
04-15-2009, 12:43 PM
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Timing belt/water pump change – my experience
I have done my timing belt/coolant/water pump plus two other belts over the past weekend and I just want to share my experience.
This is the first time that I have done something like this, so in my case it was not a small task; which is not to say that I am inexperienced when it comes to cars, I just did not do something like this ever before. And it is important to say that I do not do this for a living, I am just an ordinary DIY person I guess.
So, it did take me two fool days to complete plus on the second day I had a friend for a few hours who’s helped me as well.
Since this topic was already discussed and there are at least two DIY threads already with pictures, I will not repeat what has been already said, rather I will try to point out to some things that I found difficult and/or was not able to see in the book (shop manual) or see here on this forum and that I think are worth mentioning.
1) Draining the coolant from the engine block was a first difficulty I faced. I have already discussed this here:
https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-tl-1999-2003-98/coolant-engine-block-drain-bolt-716867/
To this I would like to add the following (now that I have completed the job and gained some knowledge from it).
I was able to put the hose on the drain bolt (the suitable hose is the one in which you can put #3 philips head screwdriver, this is for the reference), then I thought that box wrench 12mm should do the job but I was wrong. Tight space and the fact that the bolt is made from soft material caused slight stripping of bolt’s head, so the wrench was not doing the job.
The solution was in ordinary 12mm socket. Coolant starts leaking slowly and I have put large cardboard to protect the garage floor with the catch pan (I use this for oil change) on it to catch the coolant. My advise to somebody who is trying to do this is to begin with the socket, get the bolt loose (the coolant might start dripping) and then hook the hose and use the box wrench over the hose to loosen the bolt some more. This should be as mess free as it gets even though in my case, it was not that messy even without the hose since my catch pan was large enough and the coolant does not shoot out of it, it just leaks and goes down over the exhaust down to the pan.
2) I would also like to mention that socket caps that I used really helped a lot and I do recommend to anybody trying to do this job to have them. I paid mine $5 for the set of three, one for each of ¼ in, 3/8 in and ½ in sockets. I used just the 3/8 in one in combination with regular and deep sockets to get to those belt cover bolts as well as that hard to reach dipstick tube bolt. In this way it was easy. Speaking of belt cover bolts, those two seemingly hard to reach bolts for the rear belt cover are easily undone like this:
a) Remove the hose bracket/clamp that is holding P/S hose (located on the rear cylinder bank, this is just a small 10mm bolt)
b) Put your right hand (if it is long enough, mine is) under the radius rod and reach the upper bolt with the box wrench
c) Keep in mind that this is also the way to screw in your battery tie-down clamp/bolt to hold timing belt tensioner in place as per the book. This may not be necessary. I still think that this is rather necessary in the case you need to work for example on the front cam sprocket and do not want to remove completely your t-belt. In this way, you can at least hope to be able to keep your belt in the position while you remove it just from the front cam sprocket.
d) The lower bolt you would do from under the car
3) I had an issue with long socket extensions that you need to use to remove crankshaft pulley bolt. I have bought a set of four ½ in long extensions ranging in size from 15 to 30 inches in length. They turned out to be soft like cheese; they twisted and ultimately broke at the point where the extension goes to the socket. I managed to break 3 of them before I gave up. Ended up buying three 6 inches long impact gun extensions (they are usually black/dark gray in color). So my setup for this was, 4 feet long ¾ inches metal pipe, ordinary ½ in breaker bar, these 3 extensions (I could not find longer, heavy duty grade, impact gun extensions, therefore 3 of them did the trick and the 18 inches is the optimal length for this) and of course, impact gun 19mm deep socket. Like this, it was easy. I also put a suitable size wood board under (at the point where the breaker bar goes into the first extension) for support or you can use jack stand but keep in mind that once you raise the car, jack stand might not be high enough.
4) This was mentioned before, but it is worth repeating. Before you undo the water pump, put rugs under it (be generous with rugs) and make sure the hole for the dipstick tube is properly covered/protected (you do not want the coolant going into your oil). Even though the coolant is drained, there will be nice amount of it running out when you remove the pump. Also, make sure your catch pan is under the car to catch all that coolant. Undo all the bolts (there are 5 10mm bolts) plus, you need to remove tensioner pulley to remove the pump (single bolt only). The pump will be sort of stuck, just grab the pump for its own pulley and slowly wiggle it up and down or you may even slowly tap it with the hammer. This is just to prevent sudden splash of coolant coming out (it is not huge amount but then again, it is not negligible).
5) My main issue came from the t-belt tensioner i.e. from the famous pin. If you are re-using existing tensioner, you will need at least 5in heavy duty vise (I had 6in vise) to compress it and to put some sort of pin in it. The tension is strong. And the pin diameter is only 2mm. So I thought appropriate size hex key should do the job or I had some other steel pin. NO, remember, the tension is strong. I was able to put hex key in, but I was not able to pull it out. The tension was so strong that the tensioner bent that hex key etc.etc. I ended up going to the stealership and was lucky enough to manage to get the original pin, just pin, since they sell the new tensioner itself for $150 CAD plus 13% tax to that. The pin had some dents to it, I guess as a result of being pooled out but otherwise it looked fine.
Even with this pin, I had a hard time to remove it and even this OEM pin got stuck. So I had to pry somehow with the screwdriver and finally managed to pool it out. During that prying process the pin tore through the side of the tensioner from the whole through which it goes up and came out like that. Not a big deal I guess, since I do not plan to reuse it (or probably I/somebody else, could drill another hole and use it like that). The most important thing was that the belt was tensioned properly and the timing was fine.
So, does anybody here know what is the trick with this pin? Or there is none. The pin simply must be in perfect shape and needs to come out really fast? The extra trouble here is clearance as well, since the space is pretty tight.
The other thing with the tensioner is, as far as I was able to figure out, the fact that you need to put it back with the single lower bolt only, then put your belt and then put the upper bolt. Otherwise, that tensioner pulley cannot go down enough to make the clearance for the belt. If you do it like this, the t-belt should go easy. In my case, I held the belt around crankshaft sprocket and my friend ran it around, then kept it slightly tight with his hand making sure the rear sprocket does not slip (it can slide back or forth ¼ turn easily and screw your timing) while I put the other tensioner upper bolt in. I guess, this operation is probably the only one where it is really good to have somebody to help you out.
Again, I would warn you based on my experience to review this pin issue and be ready to deal with it, since in actuality, you most likely do not need a new tensioner, but then how do you solve the pin problem? Both threads on this forum that have pictures do not mention anything about this pin issue, yet in both cases brand new tensioner was bought.
6) I will just repeat one more time the importance of NOT over-tensioning your P/S belt. Do note that as you tighten that P/S bolt and nut that hold the pump in place, the tension increases. So, before you begin this job, use your hand and check the tension on the existing P/S belt. You should be able to press it with your hand so that belt almost touches side mount bracket. I repeat, almost, but still there is a bit of space in between the hand pressed belt and the side mount bracket. This should be the correct tension. Do know that your new belt is tighter and if you measure the length of the thread for the adjusting nut, with the new belt, the thread will be shorter i.e. less tension. In my case it was 2mm less with the new belt. Otherwise this is easy to do.
7) Once you put the fresh coolant in, before you begin burping procedure, place some rugs around to collect coolant that will come out during burping process. Make sure the rugs do not go into the fan, place them carefully around the top. With radiator cap put loosely i.e. may be quarter turn, start the car and let it run until at least cooling fan comes on twice, better yet 4 times. It is also good to have a catch pan under the car if you care. Turn off the car and check the radiator with some source of light to make sure the coolant is to the bottom of the feelers neck. You will need to add a little. Also check your expansion dish/plastic coolant container and add if necessary. Make sure you add enough but not above max line.
8) For this job (t-belt + water pump change) you have to remove P/S pump and lift it up and place it on the engine, do not remove hoses from it of course. Be careful when you are lifting it not to disconnect the hoses or do some other damage to them. Also, remove the top plastic covers. You need to remove the side mount and the cruse control module (3 bolts plus 2 connectors) to get some space.
9) I would just mention that my belts, especially timing belt look really good, without any bad spots, so as others reported, my looked as it can last another 50k miles at least. And my car is 7yr and 7 months old with slightly over 100k miles on it.
10) The bottom line, based on my experience, if you are doing this for the first time, make sure you have plenty of time i.e. two full days at least.
For those experienced with this, I would like to know your answer/opinion to my question about t-belt tensioner pin. This engineering solution the way it is, does not seem good to me.
This is the first time that I have done something like this, so in my case it was not a small task; which is not to say that I am inexperienced when it comes to cars, I just did not do something like this ever before. And it is important to say that I do not do this for a living, I am just an ordinary DIY person I guess.
So, it did take me two fool days to complete plus on the second day I had a friend for a few hours who’s helped me as well.
Since this topic was already discussed and there are at least two DIY threads already with pictures, I will not repeat what has been already said, rather I will try to point out to some things that I found difficult and/or was not able to see in the book (shop manual) or see here on this forum and that I think are worth mentioning.
1) Draining the coolant from the engine block was a first difficulty I faced. I have already discussed this here:
https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-tl-1999-2003-98/coolant-engine-block-drain-bolt-716867/
To this I would like to add the following (now that I have completed the job and gained some knowledge from it).
I was able to put the hose on the drain bolt (the suitable hose is the one in which you can put #3 philips head screwdriver, this is for the reference), then I thought that box wrench 12mm should do the job but I was wrong. Tight space and the fact that the bolt is made from soft material caused slight stripping of bolt’s head, so the wrench was not doing the job.
The solution was in ordinary 12mm socket. Coolant starts leaking slowly and I have put large cardboard to protect the garage floor with the catch pan (I use this for oil change) on it to catch the coolant. My advise to somebody who is trying to do this is to begin with the socket, get the bolt loose (the coolant might start dripping) and then hook the hose and use the box wrench over the hose to loosen the bolt some more. This should be as mess free as it gets even though in my case, it was not that messy even without the hose since my catch pan was large enough and the coolant does not shoot out of it, it just leaks and goes down over the exhaust down to the pan.
2) I would also like to mention that socket caps that I used really helped a lot and I do recommend to anybody trying to do this job to have them. I paid mine $5 for the set of three, one for each of ¼ in, 3/8 in and ½ in sockets. I used just the 3/8 in one in combination with regular and deep sockets to get to those belt cover bolts as well as that hard to reach dipstick tube bolt. In this way it was easy. Speaking of belt cover bolts, those two seemingly hard to reach bolts for the rear belt cover are easily undone like this:
a) Remove the hose bracket/clamp that is holding P/S hose (located on the rear cylinder bank, this is just a small 10mm bolt)
b) Put your right hand (if it is long enough, mine is) under the radius rod and reach the upper bolt with the box wrench
c) Keep in mind that this is also the way to screw in your battery tie-down clamp/bolt to hold timing belt tensioner in place as per the book. This may not be necessary. I still think that this is rather necessary in the case you need to work for example on the front cam sprocket and do not want to remove completely your t-belt. In this way, you can at least hope to be able to keep your belt in the position while you remove it just from the front cam sprocket.
d) The lower bolt you would do from under the car
3) I had an issue with long socket extensions that you need to use to remove crankshaft pulley bolt. I have bought a set of four ½ in long extensions ranging in size from 15 to 30 inches in length. They turned out to be soft like cheese; they twisted and ultimately broke at the point where the extension goes to the socket. I managed to break 3 of them before I gave up. Ended up buying three 6 inches long impact gun extensions (they are usually black/dark gray in color). So my setup for this was, 4 feet long ¾ inches metal pipe, ordinary ½ in breaker bar, these 3 extensions (I could not find longer, heavy duty grade, impact gun extensions, therefore 3 of them did the trick and the 18 inches is the optimal length for this) and of course, impact gun 19mm deep socket. Like this, it was easy. I also put a suitable size wood board under (at the point where the breaker bar goes into the first extension) for support or you can use jack stand but keep in mind that once you raise the car, jack stand might not be high enough.
4) This was mentioned before, but it is worth repeating. Before you undo the water pump, put rugs under it (be generous with rugs) and make sure the hole for the dipstick tube is properly covered/protected (you do not want the coolant going into your oil). Even though the coolant is drained, there will be nice amount of it running out when you remove the pump. Also, make sure your catch pan is under the car to catch all that coolant. Undo all the bolts (there are 5 10mm bolts) plus, you need to remove tensioner pulley to remove the pump (single bolt only). The pump will be sort of stuck, just grab the pump for its own pulley and slowly wiggle it up and down or you may even slowly tap it with the hammer. This is just to prevent sudden splash of coolant coming out (it is not huge amount but then again, it is not negligible).
5) My main issue came from the t-belt tensioner i.e. from the famous pin. If you are re-using existing tensioner, you will need at least 5in heavy duty vise (I had 6in vise) to compress it and to put some sort of pin in it. The tension is strong. And the pin diameter is only 2mm. So I thought appropriate size hex key should do the job or I had some other steel pin. NO, remember, the tension is strong. I was able to put hex key in, but I was not able to pull it out. The tension was so strong that the tensioner bent that hex key etc.etc. I ended up going to the stealership and was lucky enough to manage to get the original pin, just pin, since they sell the new tensioner itself for $150 CAD plus 13% tax to that. The pin had some dents to it, I guess as a result of being pooled out but otherwise it looked fine.
Even with this pin, I had a hard time to remove it and even this OEM pin got stuck. So I had to pry somehow with the screwdriver and finally managed to pool it out. During that prying process the pin tore through the side of the tensioner from the whole through which it goes up and came out like that. Not a big deal I guess, since I do not plan to reuse it (or probably I/somebody else, could drill another hole and use it like that). The most important thing was that the belt was tensioned properly and the timing was fine.
So, does anybody here know what is the trick with this pin? Or there is none. The pin simply must be in perfect shape and needs to come out really fast? The extra trouble here is clearance as well, since the space is pretty tight.
The other thing with the tensioner is, as far as I was able to figure out, the fact that you need to put it back with the single lower bolt only, then put your belt and then put the upper bolt. Otherwise, that tensioner pulley cannot go down enough to make the clearance for the belt. If you do it like this, the t-belt should go easy. In my case, I held the belt around crankshaft sprocket and my friend ran it around, then kept it slightly tight with his hand making sure the rear sprocket does not slip (it can slide back or forth ¼ turn easily and screw your timing) while I put the other tensioner upper bolt in. I guess, this operation is probably the only one where it is really good to have somebody to help you out.
Again, I would warn you based on my experience to review this pin issue and be ready to deal with it, since in actuality, you most likely do not need a new tensioner, but then how do you solve the pin problem? Both threads on this forum that have pictures do not mention anything about this pin issue, yet in both cases brand new tensioner was bought.
6) I will just repeat one more time the importance of NOT over-tensioning your P/S belt. Do note that as you tighten that P/S bolt and nut that hold the pump in place, the tension increases. So, before you begin this job, use your hand and check the tension on the existing P/S belt. You should be able to press it with your hand so that belt almost touches side mount bracket. I repeat, almost, but still there is a bit of space in between the hand pressed belt and the side mount bracket. This should be the correct tension. Do know that your new belt is tighter and if you measure the length of the thread for the adjusting nut, with the new belt, the thread will be shorter i.e. less tension. In my case it was 2mm less with the new belt. Otherwise this is easy to do.
7) Once you put the fresh coolant in, before you begin burping procedure, place some rugs around to collect coolant that will come out during burping process. Make sure the rugs do not go into the fan, place them carefully around the top. With radiator cap put loosely i.e. may be quarter turn, start the car and let it run until at least cooling fan comes on twice, better yet 4 times. It is also good to have a catch pan under the car if you care. Turn off the car and check the radiator with some source of light to make sure the coolant is to the bottom of the feelers neck. You will need to add a little. Also check your expansion dish/plastic coolant container and add if necessary. Make sure you add enough but not above max line.
8) For this job (t-belt + water pump change) you have to remove P/S pump and lift it up and place it on the engine, do not remove hoses from it of course. Be careful when you are lifting it not to disconnect the hoses or do some other damage to them. Also, remove the top plastic covers. You need to remove the side mount and the cruse control module (3 bolts plus 2 connectors) to get some space.
9) I would just mention that my belts, especially timing belt look really good, without any bad spots, so as others reported, my looked as it can last another 50k miles at least. And my car is 7yr and 7 months old with slightly over 100k miles on it.
10) The bottom line, based on my experience, if you are doing this for the first time, make sure you have plenty of time i.e. two full days at least.
For those experienced with this, I would like to know your answer/opinion to my question about t-belt tensioner pin. This engineering solution the way it is, does not seem good to me.
06-01-2009, 05:28 PM
#5
00 ssm
Just changed my water pump and timing belt and it was the first time i ever tried anything like this. Most issues were already covered well in the diy and by this OP. With regards to the pin issue, i actually didn't have a hard time with it and i did reuse my original tensioner. I ended up getting a pack of hair pin cotters from advanced auto parts which contained ONE pin that was 2mm. I had to bend the pin a little to make it fit through the tensioner but that wasn't hard at all i just used some pliers. Pin fit in perfect and after i put the tensioner back on the engine block, i grabbed the pin with some pliers and yanked it out hard. I did not need to pull as hard as i did, i only did it as a precaution after reading the issues the OP had. The pin came out just fine and it seemed too easy. Maybe i just took good precautions after reading the OP's problems....so if that was the case, thanks for the heads up
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