It was not the oil pan leaking. I decided to re-check the timing belt install...
My problem was the t-belt tensioner was not tight enough !?! Those 2 bolts
go into the oil pump. They were just a tad loose and the oil was coming out of
them. Got oil everywhere. Replaced the b-shaft belt, cleaned everything up and
she back on the road again !!! YAY !!!

I still don't see what the hub-bub was about with the b-shaft belt lining up though.
Just took off the old one and replaced with new one. Nothing moved.

And as stated before just unbolt the tensioner, no special tools needed. Compress
it in a vice/c-clamp and put a small allen-key in that puppy.

I spent the last 5,ooo miles dreading taking Eva apart. Ya know, still unopend
and no screws or scratches from such a major job. Was not such a bad install
after all. It went quicker the second time. Took me 2hrs. Great write-up, thanks
again.

 

I agree with the not easy job but 4-5 hours???? And 3-4 for the 2nd time??? I myself watched one of our local guys do it in about an hour with the help of a less skilled helper. Also there is absolutely nothing wrong with securing the t-belt with zip ties or plastic coated clamps as long as you pay attention. DSM guys have been changing t-belts for over a decade using this method with no problems.Very hard with the engine in the car? Maybe if your hands the size of cantalopes...

 

One item to note:
The part about torquing the crank pulley bolt to 123 ft-lbs. The procedure to put the car in gear, and have a helper apply the brake to torque the bolt may work for many cases, but there could be a risk of slipping the belt a tooth or so depending on the loading up of the transaxle gears.

I went to Home Depot and bought a 4 ft long piece of L beam (which is 1/8" thick). I used the accessory belt pulley to mark 2 adjacent holes on the beam, then drilled them the diameter of the bolts. I bought 2 shoulder bolts 8x1.25 at 2" length, and two 1.25" metal spacers (so as to not damage the actual pulley bolts). The spacers allow you to space the bar out without having to remove the lower cover (and not damage the plastic cover). With the shoulder bolts/spacers torqued down, you simply let the bar hit the ground (45 degree angle towards the front of the car). This allowed me to get full 123 ft-lbs of torque to the crankshaft pulley bolt. Relatively simple, and costs about 10 bucks to make.

To be safe, I had a buddy hold the 4 foot L beam steady, but probably not necessary.

 

The holding bar tip is a good one, another old DSM trick. I never tried it though, the DSMs were only 80 lbs IIRC. 123 is awefully high. I can't think of any reason this would make the belt slip though. The bolt you are torquing is directly on the crank, which is directly linked to the transmission. If the pulley and crank turn for some reason, the belt and cams will just go with it, same as when the engine is running.

 

I'm merely thinking of the slop in the transaxle gearing. If you put the car in gear, you can rock it back and forth without applying the brakes. So you apply the brakes for the torque case, yet the engine can reverse slightly until the gears load up. It would be a strange case - it didn't happen to me...but I was thinking it could. This is why I forked over the $10 to buy and make a tool. $10 is well worth me not having to remove all the pulleys, covers, and redo the timing on the belt.

http://www.steven-laura.net/Steven/E...PulleyTool.jpg

 

after doing this install i hated that i put it off for so long.... It wasnt nearly as bad as i had figured. I went ahead and did cams while i was at it everything has been perfect since

 

but he isnt refering to doing a set of cams... there isnt any point to secure the timing belt on the gears with zip ties if your doing a timing belt job. maybe im missing somthing....

 

Hey guys....been searching and reading through this thread but I have a newbie question I guess.....I am having my timing belt replaced as we speak and didn't know if stock vs. after market cam gears makes a difference in the installation procedure?

I have Vishnu adjustable cam gears.

Thanks!

BTW - 66,8?? miles on stock timing belt......will show pics of timing belt when I get it back...I asked them to hold if for me (hopefully they will).

 

I cannot break loose the darn crank sprocket bolt no matter what. Is there any possibility of damaging the main bearings by using an impact tool?

 

^ I've used impact on them before on DSM's with no problems.
And I've yet to have a main bearing failure to date in any of my cars.

 

In this guide it says to pry the timing belt pulley as tight as you can and then tighten the bolt...i am just wondering if that is really the best way to do that? in the book it says to use that special tool and torqre the pulley until it is like 14 in.lbs or so? well, I don't have that special tool nor can I find the thing anywhere, so I was just wondering if that is safe to do it that way, or if there are any other ideas that you may have? I cannot seem to find this information aywhere...

 

You don't want to pry it "as tight as you can," how hard you pry on it when you tighten the bolt determines the gap at the tensioner. If the gap comes out too big, try again and pry harder. If it comes out too small, you pulled too hard on it. Etc. I can usually get it right on the first or second try, making the special tool unnecessary.

 

Is breaking and removing the crank gear realy neccasary to remove the balance shaft belt? I could not get it to break loose, so once I had the T-belt off i rotated the crank over by hand in order to get it to where I could get the balance shaft belt off from around the inner cover around the crank gear. This worked well I thought and then I just put the crank back at TDC by putting a long screw driver into cylinder one and waiting for it to get to the highest point when rotating the crank. I put everything back together and have no problems at all. I found this to be much easier than trying to break the gear loose. I hope there are no problems from doing it this way.

 

Great writeup and excellent commentary as well.

I'll be tackling this job over the weekend and just have one question with regards to the above comment.

Is this to say that you don't need to remove the bolt by the starter at all? I understnad that the screwdriver trick, particularly measuring how far you can push teh screwdriver in, is used to verify the Bshaft phase. If you're don't need that step to verify the phase, can you skip remove/replacing that bolt all together?

Thanks very much for your help.

 

That is correct. I verified that this works on my own EVO and have done it on others since. That inspection bolt hole becomes obsolete. Well, not completely. On my 4g63 mightymax I used it to brace the drivers side motor mount. Knew I'd find a use for it some day...