89 Jetta 8V timing belt alignment
Joe Hunt
belt, new idler. I can't quite understand how to align everything? I
thought by purchasing a Bentley, it would resolve my concerns but I am still
not comfortable with the vague pictures and explaination.
Does any one have a timing belt alingment explaination for the beginner that
will result in a correctly installed belt and no broken parts. I
appreciate any help that can be provided in this matter.
Joe Hunt
Omaha>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Tom Flynn
Doing a timing belt can be tricky...though an 8v engine is "less likely"
to have valve damage if it is done wrong (compared to a 16 or 20 v
engine). But even if no damage, you want it to run right, which can get
screwed up if the timing on the shafts gets changed by movement...the
trick is really to keep from moving anything (camshaft,
intermediate shaft, crankshaft) when the belt is removed. As long as you
keep the same positions of the shafts when you put on the new belt, you
should have no problem (assuming you put correct tension on idler pulley).
Some people "hang" the belt from the hood to keep things in proper
position until they get the new belt on. If you are worried, you might
want to have this done for you.
It's been a long time since I did my timing belt (on my '86 GTI), but the
"hardest" things I remember is removing the pulley belts (without having
the pulleys themselves rotate)...keep the belts on when you remove the
bolts to give some resistance to rotating, or buy the tool that they have
to keep everthing from rotating (looks like a triangle on a stick...goes
around the triangle of three bolts). Also, removing the water pump bolts
were a pain...they were corroded; plan on using anti-seize on the new ones
(I had to ez-out a couple of bolts). I didn't actually remove the water
pump (though I had thought that this might be a good time to replace the
pump, though there would be more work than I wanted to do after I got
things apart, I got lazy, didn't want to move the AC compressor to get at
it since it was still OK. (Plan to buy replacement fasteners for water
pump bolts). Follow Bentley on tensioning the timing belt (unless you
have a tensioning gage, there instructions seem to be fine).
Good luck...just be patient, and careful about moving things when the belt
is off...maybe mark the shaft positions so in case something moves, you
can put things back into position. Putting it back together wasn't a big
deal, and it ran fine once I got everything back together.
--
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Tom Flynn
'78 Scirocco (sold 1988)
'86 GTI 8v (sold 2000)
'00 Golf 8v 2.0
I speak only for myself
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Dennis
The first thing you want to do is to make sure the engine is set at
top dead centre by using the timing marks on the crank. If you look at
the timing belt pulley on the cam and intermediate shaft you will
notice that they are the same. Both of these pulleys have a mark on
the outside of the pulley and the inside of the pulley just under the
teeth of the pulley. On the camshaft, you line up the mark on the
inside of the pulley (facing the back of the engine or away from
cylinder # 1) with the top of the dust shield that runs up the
cylinder head. The picture in the Bentley manual shows a close up of
this. The intermediate shaft and crankshaft pulleys are a bit
different. There is a timing mark on the front of the crank pulley and
the other one is on the front of the intermediate shaft. These two
marks are lined up against each other, there is also a picture of this
in the manual. These are the only two things you must align to ensure
that your car will work. The engine in your car is what is called a
non-interference engine, meaning that if you break your timing belt
the engine will just spin down without contacting anything. Once you
get the front covers (upper and lower) off, make sure the engine is at
TDC and replace the crank pulley and identify the two timing marks,
one on the inside of the cam and the one where the crank pulley over
laps the intermediate shaft pulley. If you don't see the timing marks
at this point then you might want to put everything back together and
let somebody else do it but I can almost guarantee you that you will
just laugh and keep going because it is pretty easy once you see it
first hand. You should also paint the timing marks once you have it
apart to make it easier to assemble. Make sure you have the front
seals close at hand incase yours are leaking, you don't want to do
this twice in as many days if you don't have too. Do you have the tool
for tensioning the idler pulley, you can do with out but it makes the
job that much easier. Check your water pump as well because you have
most of the front of the engine apart although the bolts always seem
to corrode in the housing and you need to take the whole thing apart
anyways. The only other thing to do is to make sure that you don't put
too much tension on the belt because you don't want to cause premature
wear. When you re-assemble the timing belt you might have to set it a
few times to get everything lined up just right but you will notice if
any of the pulleys are off by just one tooth by looking at the timing
marks. I find the Bentley manual to really good but it does assume
that you have mechanical abilities and it doesn't give step by step
instructions just the basics of what you need to know.
I hope this didn't make things worse
Cheers, Dennis