Holy Cow!!!! So when the guys on the boards said dont do it if you dont know what your doing. They weren't kidding at all . Did this job this weekend and it took three of us 8-10 hours to complete the job. I know I know newbs haha.

Now on the flip side Im really glad I did it because if I had to do it again I have all the tools and know exactly what to do. Plus it would take a fraction of the time . Its definately worth the 1100 bucks you save on stealership labor.

I would say not to do it yourself if you have never done it before, but if your good at following directions, have lots of tools and are extremely maticulous (<-- Prolly spelled wrong =/). Id go for it. Its a good learning experience and excuse to drink beer with good friends .

Stay tuned there may be another thread shortly titled "Car Fell Apart on Highway" haha.

 

haha nicee. I recently just asked my friend, who is a service adviser, how difficult would it be to change the timing belt yourself.

he said practically the same thing. "Don't do it unless you actually know what you're doing." lol.

 

Any tips or advice.. how to that you followed? I'm going to be doing mine very shortly also

 

Get all the tools needed so you won't be running back and forth to the auto parts store. Read the instructions a couple of times and have a copy with you while you're doing it. I haven't done mine yet but will once mine is about 59K or so. I'm at 42K now

 

can u give me a list of the tools u used.

 

Number 1 tool should be the service manual, then the t-belt tensioner tool, then the usual assortment of 10mm/12mm/14mm/17mm sockets and wrenches and a really good 1/2" drive breaker bar for breaking the crank pulley bolt loose and releasing tension on the serpentine idler arm. It's not that hard to do IMO, I did mine by myself with hand tools in about 4 hours with a water pump change included.

 

number one tool, the belt. ha

 

The walkthrough I used was:
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=191524

I also had the factory service manual on hand but the walkthrough had some of the important pictures in it.

For tools I just had a set of metric sockets (including deep sockets), a set of open face wrenches (metric of course), a breaker bar (1/2" drive), 10mm offset wrenches for the water pump pulley, 3 jack stands and 2 2x4 blocks of wood, Torque wrenches on hand, and all parts for the install (Timing belt, timing belt tensionor thinga-ma-jig, Acc belt, Balancer belt, Water pump, timing pulley, valve pulley).

I highly suggest at least two others helping if its your first time just to get the timing belt on. This was probably the biggest pain of the whole install.

 

My tensioner thread was stripped so I had to take all the pullies off the side of the motor and take the engine cover off. Be thankful you didn't have to do that.

 

I have a degree in automotive tech and thats one job I didn't do myself . I was getting cams, headgasket, headstuds, turbo and supporting upgrades installed when I did my belt, so I just had the shop do it and they put the turbo, IC, injectors, FP, etc on for free and just paid to do the headstuds/gasket basically.

 

Local shop just charges $190 to change timing belt.

 

Well we had to pull quite a few pulleys off just to get the lower timing belt cover off. I could only imagine how bad it would have been to pull more =/.

Dang! I would have paid this to have it done! Stealership was quoting me 1500 for timing belt, water pump, and pulleys.

 

i can do the timing belt in 2hrs easily. as long as you make sure you apply the correct tension to the belt and all the tick marks are lined up its a no brainer. the worst part is putting the water pump pulley back on lol

 

Tensioner setting is the most crucial part if everything is else is done correctly. It needs to be set so the holes still line up after loaded. Most of the time it's where it was initially at if using same belt part #

 

I've been reading the how-to on this every once in a while. Still waiting to find some time where I can possibly be out of a car for a little bit and be ok. haha