timing belt question

Replacing the water pump is good practice because you are already in the area anyway. All the same parts have to come off if your pump fails before the next expected timing belt job. The timing belt also turns the pump. If the pump fails to turn them the belt fails also causing the engine to stop rather than just overheat. No some Mechs may want to inspect the seals inside there also.

Flush is done on the drive to the Mechs. If you want to add the flush chemicals else new antifreeze is all you will get.

-- Richard N. Price

My 94 has 161K miles on it and has had the timing belt replaced twice by Toyota mechanic. Each time they told me we will look it over and tell me if the water pump needs replacing. The original pump is still installed. The tensioner has been replaced each time, but I am not sure of idler.

Whats teh mileage schedule on replaceing the t-belt?

Thanks

Tom

Do the pump; the additional labor cost is relatively small. If you don't have the pump replaced, and you need to change the pump later on, the labor cost is relatively high. Ask the mechanics, they can give you their standard labor charges both ways. I change my own timing belts on my cars and I still always change the pump. I don't change the tensioner, and I change the idler only if it feels rough or loose. Make sure the pump is a new one, not rebuilt, and preferably an OEM. Naturally there are exceptions. The pump on my rear drive Corolla is not buried under the belt so I leave that alone. The pump on my Stanza is buried so deep behind the belt I wouldn't even think about not replacing it. In fact it?s almost impossible to change the pump without spilling coolant all over the belt, so they are best done at the same time. As far as coolant flushes go, I'm starting to think they are a waste of time. If you are going to new mechanic it wouldn't hurt to check the BBB.

Changing the pump is a good idea. HOWEVER, be aware that at many dealers YOU WILL NOT SAVE.

This discussion came up here, oh, about a year ago. A number of us were blindsided by Toy dealers who went ahead and charged the full shop rate for changing the pump and belts etc. as if it was the only job being done, resulting in some shocking service bills.

Yes, they were in there anyway, yes there was no real extra labor involved, but that did not matter to the "stealership."

So, if you decide to go ahead and have them swap them out at the same time, make sure you ask if they will charge the fullblown price.

clyinder

toyota

mechanic?

clyinder

toyota

mechanic?

I hired the biggest, baddest 3/4" drive impact wrench I could find, and it was not enough to loosen this bolt.

On some engines there is an accessible cover plate at the other end of the engine, which you can remove to then wedge the flywheel or drive plate from turning. On my engine it was not present.

Eventually I placed the socket hard on the bolt head, with a long breaker bar (actually a piece of water pipe) resting on the concrete floor, and hit the starter. This is pure butchery, and *terrible* for the starter motor and the ring gear, but I got away with it. The risk is that you can break a tooth on the ring gear.

When I took out the bolt, I saw that it had been assembled with loctite.

I installed it afterward with the impact wrench and loctite again. The impact wrench spec happened to be about the same as the specified torque (216 Nm or about 160 ft-lb)

Geoff

My experience is with the 4 cylinder. Torque value is only around 80 ft. lbs. Understand the six cylinder crank bolts can be extremely tight. Fortunately, an inexpensive electric impact wrench was enough to easily loosen the bolt without even moving the pulley - very nice as timing marks stayed aligned; bolt just spun right off. Same for installation. Used the electric impact wrench. Had a problem where I had to remove it again, and it came off again, no problem, yet the impact feature tightens it enough where I'm not concerned about the bolt working loose. Bottom line - just estimating torque on tightening.