I finally stopped putting it off and tackled my timing belt and tensioner last Saturday (98 S70, NA). I have driven it for a week and am happy to report that it runs great and nothing has fallen off the car.

The reason for my post is to say that the job is relatively easy, if you have some time and an extra pair of hands you can call on occasionally. This was my first timing belt on any car, and I was a little nervous. Once I started taking things apart, it was no big deal (sore hands and a sore back excepted). Took about 4 hours total. The worst part was getting the new serpentine belt on.

One thing I would recommend is the cam-lock tool from ipd. Works great. In fact, if I keep the car long enough to do another timing belt, I don't think I'll even remove the spark plugs and mark the cams. I'll just lock the cams, change everything out (keeping the right side tight), and put it back together. The spark plugs will keep compression up so the crank won't move (unless I'm missing something here).

This forum and volvospeed have been a great resource for this issue. Thanks.

 

Good job... however, I recommend against not lining up the marks- what will you do IF it moves out of position? It's really easy to accidentally bend a valve when moving things around separately, and it's a bitch to get the cams to stay in place while you move each one independently to line it up. It only takes a couple minutes to line things up, and it takes a lot longer to fix if something goes wrong.