Question For Those Who Have Changed Their Timing Belt?

[DaveS]

Originally Posted by lleroux5

Thanks! It's next and I agree it should have been before.......wow.....alot of parts...parts...parts but taking my sweet time. The generator is way down the line of parts to remove, but I bet I would have been able to remove it and the drive belt tensioner right along with the PS pump. Any more helpfull hints?

Not that haven't already been posted, but here are some that either helped me or that I discovered and have already posted...

1) Replace the thermostat before removing the water pump to get correct orientation of the valve and so you don't have to torque down the bolts for the thermostat against the water pump with the brand new (and most likely still wet) FIPG gasket.

2) Trace the outline of your new water pump and holes on a piece of cardboard. Use a knife to punch an X where each hole is and stick each bolt that you remove through the corresponding hole in the cardboard. (Not all of the water pump bolts are the same length). Tape the nut that you remove anywhere on the cardboard.

3) The manual appears to be wrong about the orientation of the timing marks on the belt once the new belt and tensioner are back on. It says to turn the crank manually two revolutions and the illustrations that accompany that task indicate that the timing marks on the belt will line up right back where they were when you first put the belt on. That's incorrect. The belt is longer than two revolutions of the crank, so that is impossible. However, the timing marks on the crank and cams should line up with their respective timing marks after the two manual revolutions of the crank. This little issue caused me several hours of wasted time as I removed everything to try again, caused me to have to go buy a vise to reset the tensioner, and probably took a couple of years off my life. Hopefully, I can keep you from going through that...

Dave

[lleroux5]

Something just came up that I did not see mentioned in the FSM but it was mentioned in my Hanes manual. Did you put the truck in neutral in order to rotate the Crankshaft CW to get the proper orientation for #1 TDC? If you did, I can't get my truck in neutral. When I parked the truck in my garage to start the job, I wanted to get it closer to the garge door. Instead of starting the engine and driving closer to the door, I turned the key, put it i neutral and rolled to where I wanted it and then placed it in park. Now I can't get it in neutral again. If I have to put it in neutral I may be in trouble unless someone knows how I can do it without starting the engine.....I'm past the point of starting the engine.

[DaveS]

Originally Posted by lleroux5

Something just came up that I did not see mentioned in the FSM but it was mentioned in my Hanes manual. Did you put the truck in neutral in order to rotate the Crankshaft CW to get the proper orientation for #1 TDC? If you did, I can't get my truck in neutral. When I parked the truck in my garage to start the job, I wanted to get it closer to the garge door. Instead of starting the engine and driving closer to the door, I turned the key, put it i neutral and rolled to where I wanted it and then placed it in park. Now I can't get it in neutral again. If I have to put it in neutral I may be in trouble unless someone knows how I can do it without starting the engine.....I'm past the point of starting the engine.

I've never seen that putting the vehicle in neutral is a requirement. I certainly didn't do it and I was able to manually turn the crank and complete the job successfully.

Dave

[lleroux5]

Thanks again for the advise!
Another question! I rotated the Crankshaft to align the timing marks but the old Timing Belt does not have the Cam-R & Cam-L marks/arrows anymore. I continued to rotate to make sure that was true, which it was, and I noticed that I aligned the metal marks on the Rt & Lft Cam Sprockets with the marks on the back wall and the metal mark "V" on the Crankshaft pulley with "0" twice. That must be TDC, right?

[DaveS]

Originally Posted by lleroux5

Thanks again for the advise!
Another question! I rotated the Crankshaft to align the timing marks but the old Timing Belt does not have the Cam-R & Cam-L marks/arrows anymore. I continued to rotate to make sure that was true, which it was, and I noticed that I aligned the metal marks on the Rt & Lft Cam Sprockets with the marks on the back wall and the metal mark "V" on the Crankshaft pulley with "0" twice. That must be TDC, right?

Yep, I think that's right...

[lleroux5]

I'm going with it! Scary....now I know exactly how you must have felt! I'm 99.7 % confident that it will turn out o.k.....I just hate not being 100% positive especially since I could ruin the engine ....men first time. I was looking forward to the marks being there on the old timing belt but if you look at how the belt moves i.e. contacting the Idler pulleys and the Water Pump pulley on the top surface of the Timing Belt you can understand how the marks would be removed from wear. Tomorrow it is remove the Crankshaft Pulley, Tensioner. Timing Belt, Idler Pulleys, Water Pump and then reinstall everything. Wish me luck!

[myardnut]

Yah, unassembly of the front of the engine is a PITA for replacing the timing belts. Time consuming, but certainly doable. You also have to ignore some things in the Haynes manual. The are WRONG! on several items, like the torque on the tranny filter bolts. They show 80+ pounds? They would snap at 20. Hardest thing for me was to re-torque the crank bolt. Have to align the cams right, but other than that its pretty straight forward. I replaced all the belts and hoses and (obviously) radiator fluid at the same time. I left the water pump in there the first time. I have a new water pump for the second timing belt replacement in another 18k miles.

Amusing that some here claim to get 200k miles out of their timing belts. I replaced my first one at 70k becasue I was in dusty conditions and off-roaded it a lot. My second one will be replaced after 90k more (at 160k miles).

[lleroux5]

All done! Engine sounds good and no coolent leaks......now. One scary moment was when I was adding the coolant and I looked under the engine and had leaking. I replaced my water pump and I was fearing the worst. The leak was coming from my right side engine block drain plug that I had not tightened enough.....thank God!
The old Timing Belt looked great......but that's what everyone says, the old water pump looked good with no signs of leakage, the old Timing belt Tensioner was within specs with no fluid leakage and the Idler pulleys had no signs of leakage, but the left side Idler pulley made noise when you spun it.....I think it was going. I feel confident that I could have gotten another 10,000 miles out of everything but I had the time off to do the work.
Looking back I agree that my Haynes manual on this work was written poorly with many issues that could have been explained, sequenced and preformed better and the FSM is for a seasoned mechanic.
It was much more work than I expected.....but I know I could now do it in half the time and have learned a great deal.....it doesn't hurt knowing I saved ~$600 in labor costs.

[ctpoweraide]

Who is your source for the factory service manual? I'm looking for one for my DC '06.

[lleroux5]

Hi! I purchased mine on ebay. The best price I could find!