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Hi all , my 300K old EA82T used to rattle at idle like a steel bucket with a hand full of nuts and bolts in it . Till yesterday .

Whilst sailing over Tarren Pt Bridge engine cuts dead with no ominous noises .
Rolls down the other side and nips into side street to investigate .
Had no tools for once so couldn't do too much .
Got th missus to take me home and return with the spaniards etc .
I did try cranking it over and it wasn't even trying to fire , spun a little faster than usual on the starter and that made me think hmm , cam belt ?
Once the dizzy cap was off it was obvious that the near side cam (distributor) had no drive .
I had it moved to a friends place , lucky when friends know towies , and ordered a belt kit from CBC Bearings . Their kits have both belts/tensioners/idler and the three seals and sell for $235 odd .

I'd never done cam belts and had a read of the 87 WSM and a friends Gregorys L manual which explained it better if anything . I also had a read of a DIY thred from USMB which had the best pics .

It's pretty straightforward and the only special tool I used was a torque wrench for the idler and tensioner bolts , and the crank pulley bolt .
Have to say I'm not impressed with the dodgy way they locate the pulley , with a loose roll pin . The crank has a keyway so why not use it ?

It was suggested to me that I not put the middle cover back on since this engine should be replaced late next month so I left it off .

BTW I can see why they want you to turn the crank 360 deg to do the second or outer belt , being horizontally opposed the banks are phased 180 deg apart .
I also noticed that on both banks the inner covers have notches below the cam pulleys so you could do it in one go provided you had the near side top notch lined up and the offside lower one aligned .

I started it up with just the crank pulley back on to make sure it all worked which it did .
Straight away I noticed none of the usual "lifter" rattles so I have to put it down to a slack belt and a bit of cam thrash .

Gee told me yesterday that many rattly EA82's have belt problems like mine did , one of his did it to him too .

I strongly suggest people with the rattles check their belt tensioners and reset them via the access holes in the front cover .

May save you being left by the side of the road , cheers A .

what I'd like to know is how you are suposed to apply a measured torque to the cam sprocket to create correct belt tension when all tension wrenches I have come across only go one way. From my understanding of instructions you gotta turn tension the other way !

Good bit of diagnosis. They are neat in this dept. Maybe first tip to fix rattly lifters will be check belt tension?

You are lucky the captive 'nut' did not spin in its plastic casing. I use o rings between bolt head and casing to ease next time access

I'd say it's because it matters not if you turn the engine via the crank or cam pulleys only the loaded side of the belt is "stretched" .
I don't like the idea of turning it backwards because you put all the cam/valve spring loads on the tensioners and they are really only designed to tension the unloaded side of the belt .

Yeah the captive threaded inserts in the rear covers .
The rebuilt engine had some of its covers bought new ex Japan because of that problem . Dread to think what they cost .
I know some people use cable ties through the holes instead of the bolts to avoid this issue and they come off easily with wire cutters . I didn't have any ties with me at the time .

Cheers A .

yes, been there a couple of times in my suby's life.
both times (on different engines) it was a siezed/exploded bearing on pulley that destroyed the belt. First was a toothed idler pulley, second was a tensioner pulley.
the poxy belt cover fasteners give me the preverbial. the last time I had to do the job, the covers were so damaged by the time i got them off, I spat it and pulled the whole lot off. she's been running 'naked' ever since.
Yes, its not the best, but i can inspect belt tensions and pulley bearings with ease now....
Lessons learnt:
1. buy the CBC kit and replace the pulleys/bearings at the same time as the belts.
2. Check for pulley bearing condition as well as maintaining tensions.

i have fixed up a fair few cars now with loose timing belts.

from my experience its usually more prominent whent he revs are raised slightly and you start hearing more of a slapping/chatting.

some of them also tend to slap against the Cam covers themselves.

mondeos or astras come to mind..... an idler lets go, and the belt gets so slack it flaps around against the timing cover... ball bearings usually fall out the bottom timing cover!!

I pulled a toyota 5s-fe in a sdv10r camry apart the other day that had the original belt on it, at 294 thousand km...... now THAT is lucky!!!

Robert

many of the bubble back Lasers were like that and think reason was the service coupons and warranty only went so far and timing belt replacement did not appear or appear so obvious it needed to be replaced in those coupons only mentioned elsewhere in service handbook and ownership changes book gets lost, pockets get deeper and timing belts don't get changed and never seem to break !