I finally got around to the Timing Belt - Deferred maintenance part 1.
 

Finally got around to doing the timing belt.
Maintenance records (remarkably complete) show this was last done in October 2012 at 175,***km.
And interestingly, that was the 2nd belt, the first belt was changed in August 2005 at 65,000km (bit early wouldn't you say?)!

Current mileage is 225ish km. As I only do around 10,000km annually, a time interval of 6.5 years seems appropriate.



To get to this point took me most of the day at my mates place (he has a hoist, which makes easy work of most car maintenance). I work slow and steady with plentiful tea breaks!
The radiator is still attached to the support and the whole assembly is resting on milk crates and blocks of wood in such a manner as to not put the transmission hoses or aircon hoses under any stress. I might take the whole thing off next time, you only lose about 300ml of trans fluid out of the cooler removing the radiator, and you can swing the aircon radiator out of the way by itself, which is much lighter!
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...6&d=1549891653
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...8&d=1549891820

At this point the engine is timed on the timing mark, with the cams aligned the correct way around (big holes facing inwards), and the crankshaft locking pin has been inserted.
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...5&d=1549891653

Oops... casualty of clutch fan removal! Serves me right for buying a cheap Chinese thin spanner. Turns out theres sufficient room for a full size spanner in there anyway - 1 1/4" did the job - glad my mate plays with Mack trucks!
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...9&d=1549891820

Timing belt and water pump removed. I think I had replaced the thermostat at this point too, as the cover is suspiciously clean!
I'm a big one for parts cleaning, which is time consuming - just as well I don't do this for a living!
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...7&d=1549891653

Oh dear... When removing the water pump, one of the bolts felt a bit odd. The head sheared off. By the feel of it, I suspect it had already yeilded when last replaced in 2012.
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...0&d=1549891820


Several attempts to remove it using vice grips, oxy-acetylene heating, and freeze spray culminated in this expensive little stud removal chuck. That cracked the thread and got the bolt moving 1/4 turn, but wouldn't pull it out.
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1549891884

Finally my mate said he was going to weld a nut on!
Alloy gasket surface cast into the block... I was a bit nervous about this!
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...2&d=1549891884

Yay!!!
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...3&d=1549891884

New water pump and timing belt installed. All new hardware used on water pump with nickel anti-seize. Not going through that again!
** Dont worry MJ, we readjusted the timing from this configuration to properly preload the tensioner once we figured out how it worked. We even moved the timing belt a tooth somewhere to give the tensioner the extra adjustment it needed. Don't worry about the white marks either, they were just a visual reference, the locking bar was refitted for primary timing. I rechecked it and rotated the engine about a dozen times before buttoning it all up, refitting the locking bar each time! **
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...4&d=1549891965

Timing covers back on
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...5&d=1549891965

Nearly there
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...6&d=1549891965

Done!
The Eagle eyed amongst you may notice something missing here (and I'm not talking engine covers!). More on that in another thread later!
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...7&d=1549891965

Nice work Marty! +++

Just needs a good clean under there now ;)

I guess it's difficult to keep the engine bay clean living in the hot dusty Oz climate.

The lower bumper?

I live on a dirt road with a dirt driveway. So Summer time is dust, and Winter time is mud!

I give it a wipe down and parts clean whenever I do maintenance.
The car itself gets washed a little more often than that!


Yes, lower valance/spoiler has been removed for repairs!
I'll do a thread on this once I take more photos...

Great write-up Marty, but could you resize the images to about half of what they are? My laptop runs full HD 1920x1080 and I still have to scroll across to see the rest of the images and the text.

Sorry, the whole thing was done on my phone. I checked the images and they're 4032 x 3024 pixels... so yeah.
I'll take a look at editing apps. Google photos doesn't do it!

Edit: fixed!
Hopefully a bit easier to view the photos now!

No need to apologise. It just makes the write-up so much pleasant to read through.

If you look at the first pic of the thread (see below), you will see the front engine torque mount ('the egg') in two pieces (just in front of the right hand front tyre)
I replaced this while the front end was apart too.
I removed both shims from beneath the top chassis mount (these are visible still sitting on the top mount just under the Harmonic Balancer in front of the wheel too), and still had about 1mm of clearance on the new mount. The instructions say it should be a good fit (or words to that effect), neither stretched or compressed.
So I shimmed the lower mount using a washer and needed to be careful how I tightened the nut to prevent adding any twist to the mount (which has locating tabs).

Makes a difference to the smoothness of power delivery I must say. Good item to repair.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...6&d=1549891653