Tightning the timing belts

Is that like an Austin Metro?

How many does it have?

Nope it's a US motor, he wants to try rec.autos.tech

I know - but I only know because Flanders used to drive one.

Maude: Go faster! Ned: I can't, it's a GEO!!

AFAIK, GEO was a brand name used to introduce small, foreign-built cars to the US market. I don't think they actually made any cars in the US. I think the GEO Metro was the Suzuki Swift. Don't know much about these, either, except that some at least were built in eastern Europe - Romania, maybe?

Memories! A long, long time ago, Austin produced a disaster for the US market. There won't be any about because they rotted away in twelve months. Known as the Austin Metropolitan. Sometimes referred to as Nash Metropolitan. Sounds like an ice cream cornet but didn't look as stylish. They also produced the Austin Atlantic. They looked good, but longevity wasn't their forte either. Neither was the Hillman California, Standard Ensign, Vauxhall Cresta etc. Thin sheet steel recovered from scrap bikes and tin baths. Then they drilled holes and fixed chrome portholes and decor flashes all over, fastened with brass fixings. Chrome+copper+tin+zinc+iron. All the bodywork was a sacrificial anode. Engineering!? They thought corrosion was a battery polarity problem so changed the positive and negative terminals with each new model. That lead to a few flash bangs and scorched eyebrows in the garage. If you swapped a radio to another car you needed a polarity converter. Didn't even have the basic schoolboy science to wonder why a bulb will illuminate if you connect it to a couple of nails and stick them in a lemon. DaveK.

Autodata has the instructions

In those days radios were valve and not polarity sensitive. It was the arrival of cheap solid state silicon devices that forced the change back to negative earth.

AFAIK the geo is a suzuki swift, I assume it is the twincam G13B

Remove covers as necessary. Set to tdc. Check crank and cam wheel marks are aligned. Loosen the tensioner lockbolt and turn the engine two turns clockwise, check timing marks on crank and camwheels still align . Retighten tensioner. Refit covers. That is it.

MrCheerful

I seem to recall that as well, and also that it was sold as the Chevy Sprint.

There was also the Geo Prizm, which I think was a homologue of the American made (at New United Motor Manufacturing in Fremont, CA) Toyota Corolla.

The rest of their line that I recall was the Tracker (Suzuki Vitara/Sidekick) and Storm (Isuzu Gemini). Isuzu had previously made the LUV mini-truck and the Spectrum compact for Chevy. I think those were all Japanese.

Actually, a fair number of them survived in the US and have passed into the hands of enthusiasts. Dunno how many, but it is not that terribly unusual to see one puttering around on a nice weekend. Almost 95,000 were made in the course of eight years.

If I've got this right, the car was designed in the US at the behest of Nash (soon to become American Motors) and was built by Austin; at various times during its 1954-62 run it was sold under the names NKI (Nash-Kelvinator International, briefly early on), Nash, and Hudson, as well as under the Metropolitan nameplate.

See for instance

Anyway, I have no idea how you'd tension the timing belt on a Geo Metro, but would certainly recommend a factory shop manual or a good aftermarket manual for such a procedure. Sources for parts and manuals for these cars are readily available through a Web search, though I don't know how many of them do business in the UK or are accustomed to figuring out international sales.

Best of luck,

--Joe