help a brother out!

gopokes · Post by **gopokes** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 9:19 pm

Hi folks - I'm attempting to change my water pump and I'm wondering if I need to remove all of the drive belts to get the timing belt cover off. My repair manual just says, "Remove the upper timing belt cover" but it seems as though I might have to deal with the belts. Will I have to mess with the idler pulley to take the tension off of the ac belt? My car is an '84 wagon. Also, I had a tough time removing the radiator because the bottom lip was getting snagged on the shroud of the fan, so I had to take off part of the grill, loosen the fan, move it forward, and THEN remove the radiator. Has this happened to any of you? Thanks for the help -
GP

MootsMan · Post by **MootsMan** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 10:40 pm

Yep, yep !! went through the very procedure this afternoon ! How many miles on your Terc ?? do you know when the timing belt was last changed ?? It'd probably be a good idea to change it while you have everything down to change the water pump, along with changing the camshaft and crankshaft seals. There are some good write-ups in the repair section, also. It's a good idea to change the belt tensioner while you're in there, too....probably figure around $100-120 for all the parts.

I picked up a good trick for loosening the crank bolt today. Use a long breaker bar, wedge it against the frame on the driver's side ( on top of the frame rail ), and with the socket on the bolt, of course, just bump the key to turn the engine over....loosened that sucker like a charm !

Iain · Post by **Iain** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 8:54 am

MootsMan wrote:I picked up a good trick for loosening the crank bolt today. Use a long breaker bar, wedge it against the frame on the driver's side ( on top of the frame rail ), and with the socket on the bolt, of course, just bump the key to turn the engine over....loosened that sucker like a charm !

You might want to remove the spark plug wires first, if the motor turns over and fires, you've got some problems!

gopokes · Post by **gopokes** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 5:33 pm

Thanks for the replies - I have 173,000 miles on the car, but the timing belt has been replaced about 30,000 miles ago, and looks pretty good. How do you loosen the belt that goes over the idler pulley? Is this where the starter trick comes into play? I can't figure out how to loosen it so that I can remove the timing belt cover and ultimately change the water pump. So far it's been a bit of a pain - but I'm not Johnny Fix-it either. Any suggestions?
gp

MootsMan · Post by **MootsMan** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:50 pm

If that is the alternator belt, simply loosen the alternator ( top and bottom bolts) and push it over toward the engine to put slack in the belt.

The starter trick is for loosening the crankshaft bolt, on the crank pulley, at the bottom of the engine.....doesn't have anything to do with belts. You have to pull that pulley off if you're going to change the timing belt .

good luck !

gopokes · Post by **gopokes** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 10:38 pm

I've loosened the alternator and that did help with one belt, but there is another belt that is still in the way of the upper timing belt cover to the point where I can't get the cover off since it gets pinned by that belt. I think that if I lower the idler pulley, I'll be able to loosen the belt, but so far I haven't been able to. Am I way off base? Thanks again for all of the help!
Gp

keith · Post by **keith** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 5:04 am

The belt for the idler pulley is simple. Slightly looses the bolt (14mm) going through the pulley, then put a 12mm socket on a 6" extension and use it to run down the vertical bolt behind the pulley. Turn ccw to run the pulley down until you can get the belt off.

The power steering belt is the real (blank). You have to remove all 4 mounting bolts. A little over engineered here I think.