Did my timing belt this morning. Did the belt and idler. When I spun the idler I could hear the bearings. The tensioner roller was like new, tight and quiet. The tensioner did not leak when compressed so I re-used it.

My old and new belt tracks to the rear. I'll check it in 500 miles to see if it frays at all, the old belt wasn't.

I also did a compression test since I pulled the plugs to do the TB. It's so much easier to turn the crank with the plugs out. With them out I could check the plugs and test compression. So here are my numbers (specs say 156 - 185):

Mileage is 204,452: 178 / 175 / 179 / 175 / 175.

IMO, Those are darn good numbers for a 17 year old car with over 200 on the clock. I would say that are as good as most cars with 50,000 miles on it. I think the PO was using dyno Penzoil since the car had 70,000 on it. He purchased it in '02 and just kept the oil changed. He was a fire chief so I know he kept his foot in the carpet. I wonder if I can volunteer to chase fires or something that will give me a license to speed around town like a maniac.

 

Almost forgot, my timing marks were almost impossible to find on my cams. I have read about people in the past saying that they had no marks and I alway thought they weren't looking hard enough. The last person that did the belt just maked the cams where they lyed on the cover and knocked it out. I finally did find the marks, mainly the one on the exhaust cam, then verified it with #1 and filed some good marks in the cams. Can't miss them next time. I also put white out on it.

 

What works great is a bottle of touch up paint. I always keep one in my tool box for marking metal.

Snow or Arctic white works great for timing marks. I have a good timing light but putting down the white makes it a piece of cake when you're dialing in a distributor on a engine where they are adjustable. On our cars it's just easier to mark the cams, crank and the stationary points they should line up with.

I always wrote date and mileage on fuel filters so I'd know when I did it last. To make it adhere I'd wipe it off with brake or carb cleaner before marking it. I've been able to read them years later. Especially customer cars so I'm not recommending one when I did one last oil change, very embarrassing.

That and a marker so I could date and mile air filters and such that paint wouldn't work on.

Sometimes it's what drives a customer back as they see my "reminder" and think it's time for a new one.

 

Well, I put my tb sticker inside the glovebox door. I think it will be seen there more than under the motor, where it can wear or get dirty and fall off. My old mechanic use to write on the cover with a white wax pencil.

 

I usually write it in Silver sharpie, on top of the computer box.

 

There is a sticker on top of the computer box right now. I think that's a good placed for it.

 

i agree with the "if its not leaking, dont change it"

When i first did my T belt, i thought, i'll change my cam seals, im already there..

So i changed them (with jobber) 2 years later, they were leaking puddles everywhere I went, it completely oil soaked the belt and the whole side of the engine.
I did it again a couple weeks ago, I changed everything, idler, tensionner, belt, and the other roller, with the OEM kit from FCP. I had already changed my non leaking water pump last time ( 2 years ago)

I put brand new OEM cam seals this time and it does not leak anymore. Hopefully it never will, but I regret changing them the first time, they weren't leaking. At least now I can have piece of mind knowing everything is new.

 

For the life of me, I do not know why cam seals became part of the timing belt kit.

When we got our S70 it had a timing belt replaced but not the PCV service. A few months later I learned that the PCV was clogged and changed it. About 12 months later, I switched to full synthetic and the next oil change I learned that 2 or 3 cam seals were leaking. I told my daugher that I would have to deal with that within a few months and 4 days later put my foot in it. A few months became NOW. So I pulled all 4 seals and all of them were after market seals. My guess is that they were installed within 2 years. It has 4 OEM seals now. That was 17 months ago, so far so good.

 

it was not a part of the kit, but i get them apart.