Ultimate Timing Belt DIY!

[whizbang]

Don't mark the belt just use the timing marks on the cam, crank and flywheel. If the marks line up the motor is in time.

[White Jetta]

While that is true, it does help to mark the belt and transfer the marks to the new one so you have no doubt how many teeth are between each pulley. Sometimes it is very easy to be off just one tooth once everything is on and tightened up.

[Tetzuoe]

Quote, originally posted by White Jetta »

While that is true, it does help to mark the belt and transfer the marks to the new one so you have no doubt how many teeth are between each pulley. Sometimes it is very easy to be off just one tooth once everything is on and tightened up.

if you lign up all the marks everything should be fine and you dont have to mark be the belt BUT, in my case after two revolutions the marks were off by about two teeth, i marked the belt simply so that if it fell off id have some kind of reference.

Quote, originally posted by whizbang »

Unless you want to pull the motor leave the motor mount in the car loose. It will come out with the tensioner removed but will NOT go back in with the tensioner installed. I got distracted by friends stopping over to 'help' and forgot to re-position the motor mount before I bolted up the tensioner and pulled the pin. .

LOL ditto, i had the mount in there but the tensioner blocked it from going to the right position

oh, and the pump made a huge mess, even with coolant drained, luckily the water ejected all the peices of the broken impeller


Modified by Tetzuoe at 9:23 PM 1-1-2007

[groggory]

I am about to start on a timing belt job today and my brother pre-emptively pulled the pin on the Tensioner. I put the tensioner in a vice, squeezed the pin shut, and replaced the pin.

Did I damage it by compressing the pin all the way again? Is compressing the pin not a big deal because it was designed to compress?

Am I safe using this tensioner, or should I go buy another one before the job is the question.

Thanks,

Greg

[White Jetta]

You should be fine because i've done exactly what you did on my old DSM several times. Always pulled the pin out too early

[Tetzuoe]

the haynes manual says thats exactly what you should do, except they say put a small drill bit or something in there instead of a pin. plus they use the M5 bolt and washer to compress it via the pulley. long story short your fine

[verboten1]

where are the marks on the crank side?

[standard]

if you jack the motor up all the way, the mount WILL come out. we do about a dozen of these a week

[thetwodubheads]

thanks, i'll have to try that when I do the seal probably next week.

[Tetzuoe]

how high can the motor go? i was reluctant to go past a few inches.

[gsusmaniac]

Bump...also curious about how high the engine can go as I am about to start this job!

[chefdave]

I'm not following the reasoning behind marking the old belt. I'm guessing there are registration markings or some kind of indication that lets you match it exactly to the new belt?

[White Jetta]

Quote, originally posted by chefdave »

I'm not following the reasoning behind marking the old belt. I'm guessing there are registration markings or some kind of indication that lets you match it exactly to the new belt?

It's just to transfer the marks to the new belt and be able to put it back on exactly as it came off, tooth for tooth between the pulleys. The marks would go from the belt onto the pulley before removing it. It's just for another measure of safety on this "get it right once or be sorry" operation.

[IAmTheNacho]

Quote, originally posted by verboten1 »

where are the marks on the crank side?

There is a notch on the cover plate of the timing belt that lines up with a mark on the accessory drive pully off of the crank, You can check it there but if you need to adjust it you kinda have to take it all apart again. Not sure where the one is on the flywheel never really needed to look at it.

[verboten1]

well thanks to this writeup and some over the phone help from a local guru (an awesome chick BTW) I got the job done in 9 LAZY beer drinking and cigarette smoking hours

[1.BillyT]

Quote, originally posted by White Jetta »

It's just to transfer the marks to the new belt and be able to put it back on exactly as it came off, tooth for tooth between the pulleys. The marks would go from the belt onto the pulley before removing it. It's just for another measure of safety on this "get it right once or be sorry" operation.

That, and since it is easy for the cam to bump over one way or the other withthe belt off, the marks are just a fail safe to make sure everything is where it ought to be. The new belt doesn't just "slip on", it takes quite a bit of force to get it on, and it is real easy to move things around. But if you make sure all of you marks line up, you know you are good to go.

Like I said, we don't even put the engine at TDC. Just mark the belt and the gears, transfer the marks to the new belt and put it back on. Keep the makrs all lined up and you know it is right. Once everythig is back together, we do turn the engine over by hand, just to verify that it is indeed in time.

As for 02-03 cars being consistantly a tooth off... I'd be a bit leery of the shop that told me that.

[T-Boy]

Quote, originally posted by White Jetta »

You should be fine because i've done exactly what you did on my old DSM several times. Always pulled the pin out too early

Man, I don't wanna be around you guys with gernades....

[1.BillyT]

Quote, originally posted by Tetzuoe »

if you lign up all the marks everything should be fine and you dont have to mark be the belt BUT, in my case after two revolutions the marks were off by about two teeth,

The marks on the belt are only good for reinstallation. Once you turn over the motor, they are useless, unless you go back the same number of turns you went forward or vice versa.

[White Jetta]

1.BillyT is the man to listen to, thanks for clearing things up a bit

[groggory]

Quote, originally posted by 1.BillyT »

As for 02-03 cars being consistantly a tooth off... I'd be a bit leery of the shop that told me that.

All I know is that my brother had his belt replaced at that shop, and after the new belt his car pulled better, idled better, and just felt overall stronger.

But then again, they did replace a cracked hose too. (the Y hose that comes from the PCV and sits on top of the engine)

[1.BillyT]

yeah, it's realy possible that your brother's jumped time. But to say they are consistantly off a tooth just isn't true.

[911sp]

One question...

How do you release the tension on the old belt before removing it.

[wavinwayne]

Quote, originally posted by 911sp »

One question... How do you release the tension on the old belt before removing it.

I just removed the roller from the tensioner. That seemed to do the trick.

[wynler]

Excellent write-up. I just did mine this weekend following these instructions (with a bentley for reference).

-I would say to definitely mark the belt, cam and crank with fingernail polish. I would've been one notch off if I hadn't.

-The coolant from the water pump IS going to make a mess, prepare for it.

-Before putting the tensioner back on, drink a couple beers and smoke a cigarette. You'll really be angry trying to get that thing aligned with the pully if you don't.

-Might want to have an extra set of hands for putting the engine mount back on. So that one set can adjust the position of the engine while the other puts the two bolts in

-definitely change to a metal impeller water pump. I just tapped my old plastic one on the ground and it shattered.

-I used my stock tire iron as an extension to my ratchet to loosen those stubborn bolts.

Cheers for an excellent DIY!!

[wavinwayne]

I just finished my TB job today. I couldn't have done it properly without this DIY. Thanks a million to the OP who took the time to post this DIY. You da man!

A few things I learned while doing this job:

This is not an easy job. Unless you do jobs like this all the time, you need plenty of time & LOTS of patience. A proper engine hoist would also make this job soooooooooo much easier, since you'd be able to completely remove the engine mount. It's a PITA to keep moving that thing around.

A can of Seafoam spray makes removing & reinstalling the intercooler hoses much easier. Also, one of my screw-type hose clamps broke when re-installing it. I recommend buying new hose clamps. O'Reilly Auto Parts has very good hose clamps for a good price. They are a little wider than the OEM clamps, which gives you a little more clamp area.

Removing & re-installing spring clamps from coolant hoses is a PITA if you don't have a pair of small vise grips, or a proper spring clamp compresser tool.

A plastic bicycle tire lever is a good tool to help get the timing belt onto the crankshaft sprocket. I definitely couldn't have gotten it on by hand.

If you're replacing the thermostat at the same time as the timing belt, you will almost certainly have to remove the generator, to access the thermostat housing mounting bolts. If I had this to do again, I would remove the top generator mounting bolt, and only loosen the lower mounting bolt. I would then try to swing the generator toward the radiator, to gain access to the thermostat housing bolts. I'm not sure if this works, but it's what I would try if I were doing this job over again.

The OEM water pump impellers are as crappy as everybody says. My OEM water pump only had 88k miles on it, and 2 of the impellers shattered in my hand when I removed the water pump from the block. A pox on the house of the VW engineer that spec's the plastic impeller water pumps!

That's all I can think of right now. If anyone is interested, I did a play-by-play of this job, and posted it on another forum. Here's a link: http://theoildrop.server101.co...&vc=1

I did the job in my spare time, over the course of a couple of weeks.

[Tim_1.8T]

Thanks, I'm glad it helped!

[bread1]

Thanks for the post Tim I did it on about 5.5 hrs after work the other night. Other that the motor mount it wasnt to bad. Your post deff helped out a ton.

Ryan

[Tcatt]

I have been workin on my timing belt since 3:00 still don't have the belt off well just about to pull it off

[sinigang20]

I just got done with the job and I must say I hope I don't have to do it again. I got a late start and didn't end till 1:00 am I had to also put in a thermostat but that was easy.
I am really glad I had this or else I'd have to work on it for days. Thank you so much for the write up. The car is running fine now and all is well.

[BrandonSS]

Quote, originally posted by 1.BillyT »

yeah, it's realy possible that your brother's jumped time. But to say they are consistantly off a tooth just isn't true.

Actually it makes sense. When you release the tension it pulls the cam gear and crank gear toward each other.. Some more extreme than others. That could easily move it enough to be about 1 tooth off. Even in the Bentley it states that once tension is applied it can cause the TDC to be off. Obviously not ALL, but he didnt really say ALL anyway.

BTW... great write up.. it definitely helped me through this. And that side engine mount is a serious pain in my ass. Always getting stuck and in the way.

[337GTiAndrew]

this is good stuff

[SaucemanVR6]

Thanks for the great writeup!

Did my timing belt and other related stuff over the weekend - definitely be prepared to be cursing

What a PITA that engine mount bracket is. I also had to make an adjustment after pulling the pin, so I bought a 5m x 50 mm bolt from lowes (fully threaded) and a large fender washer to compress the tensioner. (I believe the VW tool is 5m x 55mm. )

If you do the thermostat at the same time, here is a good little writeup I found:

Quote, originally posted by 4ceFed4 »

So here's how to get the thermostat out for any searchers who are curious like I was. This is what I did at least... 1) get the SAI hose out of the way by removing the 2 10mm nuts holding it to the bracket on the intake manifold. 2) remove the black braket itself by removing the 2 5mm allen bolts. Disconnect the n249 plug and whatever else is under there so you can get it out of the way. 3) Slide the alternator out of the way by removing the 2 13mm bolts on the passenger side holding it to the bracket and disconnecting the electrical plug. This was a pain for me as the metal bushing were seized up good. I used a pry bar and hammered on it some using a hammer and a 2x4. 4) remove the coolant hose off the plastic thermostat housing/flange. 5) now you have easy access to the 2 5mm allen bolts holding the t-stat housing to the block. can also use 10mm socket 6)Remove the housing, then the thermostat by rotating it 90 degrees CCW and pulling straight out. 7) install is the reverse of removal, don't forget to put a liitle coolant on the new o-ring. I sanded down the metal alt bushing a little and rubbed some while lithium grease on there to ease reinstallation. Still a pain. Don't forget to reconnect the n249 like my buddy did...

[spoof3r]

dang that looks super easy. how long does it take?

so if it's as easy as that looks, then WHY THE CRAP DO PEOPLE WANT 400-600 BUCKS FOR LABOR?!?!?

[wreckedmyteg]

Quote, originally posted by spoof3r »

dang that looks super easy. how long does it take? so if it's as easy as that looks, then WHY THE CRAP DO PEOPLE WANT 400-600 BUCKS FOR LABOR?!?!?

It took me about 10 hours, and I consider myself a good wrench turner.

I'll take it in next time. It was a major PITA.

[Tim_1.8T]

It's easy in the sense that the steps are straight forward but it is a lot of work. I know some people claim to be able to do them in about 2 hours after doing like 50 of them but those people are few and far between. It took me about ten hours to do it as well.