I fitted a full cambelt aux belts etc kit yesterday and want to add some thoughts to skinflints excellent guide. I did it at a mates garage so had access to a hydraulic lift & a full range of tools.

We found that there was not enough access to get the water pump and cambelt tensioner out, even with all of the engine mounts disconnected. We tried various combinations of lowering and raising the engine & box to no avail.

When disassembling the drivers side front engine mount (accessed from the front wheel arch) rather than taking just the mount out (as per the guide), if you remove the U-shaped bracket as well then this gives enough room to remove the waterpump and tensioner with ease. If this U shaped bracket is left in then it fouls the chassis restricting the amount of height you can raise the engine.

This would mean that to get enough room to do the full belt change you only need to remove the drivers side engine mount & bracket and the tie bar engine mount on the top. And as such would save a significant amount of time when doing this job.

Thanks to skinflint for writing up the guide it was invaluable yesterday!

Is that not the point where you usually apply leverage to the engine via a suitably sized piece of 2x4?

I didn't matter how much leverage we applied yesterday (using 3' pry bars) we could not get the tensioner out. Even with all 4 mounts disconnected and the engine floating on two jacks.

Once removed the engine didn't need to be levered to get the tensioner out. Had we removed the U shaped bracket along when we removed that engine mount we could have done the job in less time and with less effort.

Where did you move the engine to get that bracket off. Last time I was there, I seem to recall that due to the fact it feeds through the engine mount there wasn't enough clearance to pull it out without it hitting the chassis rail. Must be possible though.

You have to rotate it, I did it with mine and it came off happily enough, the engine has to be dropped right down to give enough clearance over it though.

The other thing I would change is the suggestion to bodge it with Torx drivers, you need to use the proper ribe bits.

We dropped the engine as low as it would go, then undid the nut and tapped the U shaped bracket out and this withdrew the long bolt. There was just enough room to get it out before it fouled the chassis.

In all honesty we used torx bits with no problems.

Thanks, good tips.

Also it was well worth the cash for the cam locking tools. There were no positive marks for the timing on the crank pulley, and so the cam locking tools were worth their weight in gold for us.

I just tippexed markes on the pulleys and covers before disturbing the old belt and realigned these afterwards.

There was no movement at all on the cams after the belt came off.

I did think about locking tools but thought they were money I could use elsewhere and would get them if required (My car isn't a daily runner so there's no pressure of time on me).

Thanks for the comments.
I think there's a need to supplement the guide a bit.

I've also noticed on the Alfa how much space you can clear by removing the whole lower mount, but haven't tried it on the Fiat. Do you have any photos?

It also seems important that both methods of timing - blocks or tipp-ex marks - are shown. I'll probably go the block route next time. Maybe the guide isn't clear enough that you need to put the marks on yourself, and that there isn't anything much to help if you don't.

My final worry is that I did the work on an NA which doesn't have an oil cooler. I worry about people using a bit of 2x4 and bending or breaking their oil cooler and pipes. Were they an issue for you?

Skinflint,

I don't have any photos of the clearance gained unfortanately, but you can get the engine shifted over much more with the U shaped bracket removed.

I was aware of using tippex, the guide was fine there. The picture we had in the handbook (and from on here) shows a definite mark on the cambelt 'housing' to the left of the crank pulley, on my car there was no mark and it really wasn't obvious where TDC was. This is why I was pleased we had the blocks, as we shifted the engine to roughly where the mark should be then fitted the blocks.

On the 20VT the oil cooler is attached to the lower drivers side engine mount, once you disconnect the mount the oil cooler is hanging relatively freely, and doesn't move much with the engine. I did have to move the oil cooler pipes, as they fouled the chassis when we were raising the engine. There is a bracket which attaches the pipes to the block we removed that and slid the pipes over to get the clearance.

Overall the guide was *very* useful!

The person who did my cambelt last used tippex on the pulleys. So when I did the cambelt on it last week (Which has the cams on tapers like the 20VT) the timing was miles off, I couldn't get the cam locks on one of the cams it was that bad. I'd have never have known without the proper tools. I think camlocks are essential for proper timing.

Car feels much better now, but that may just be in my head!

did my belts on saturday in work, from start to finish took 2hrs had no problems with anything piece a cake

My guess is there is considerably more room when doing a 4 cylinder engine

I guess that all depends on differences from one belt to the next, how much the belt has stretched, or what happened last time somebody tried using blocks to time it.
As you say blocks will overcome any differences between belts and is the way I'll go next time.

Very True.

One other thing, how is the tension set on these belts? I believe on my V6 Alfa, if you do not undo the pulleys you can't set the tension properly in the belt. I don't know whether this applies to the the 20VT or not, what does the workshop manual say? The problem is probably exasperated on the V6 by it having 4 cam pulleys as opposed to 2, but when I was tensioning my belt you could see the pulleys moving slightly. If they pulleys were all locked to the cams, you'd be tensioning one part of the belt more than the other I think.

I guess you're talking about tensioning using the Tipp-Ex marks technique.
It is about the same in terms of difficulty. You don't have blocks stopping the cams from rotating, and once you've tensioned and locked down you should always take the engine through a few rotations and check the tension again. If the needle isn't pointing at the hole then you need to go back and do it again. This is wasn't too much of a worry having done the cam belts on lots of more mundane cars over the years (e.g. VWs), where all you can do is line up the teeth and set the tension.

I think the block technique introduces a whole mindset that then gets you wondering but if all you're doing is matching / lining up teeth, all that matters is that the tension is correct after you finish because you aren't adjusting the valve timing - just fitting a belt.

I'm sorting parts and tools to do my belt soon. For those who want to use tdc tools the parts I bought are:

Laser TDC indicator Alfa/Fiat/Ferrari No 3493 £36.92
Laser DTI no 2584 £32.93

For holding the cam pulleys I bought: Laser cam holding tool no 2869 £10.46

I bought cam locks too.

Undo the six rear subframe bolts but leave them in a few threads and take out the two long subframe bolts all the way and then your have the engine right down

Ok so I've had fun and games with my car since doing this. The water pump I bought was a snug fit to say the least. So snug in fact that as we were nipping it up it tore the o ring seal in half. Needless to say I began to loose coolant and within a week it got a lot worse and I had to do the job again.

First time we did it it took 7 and half hours, this time 3 and half hours. That includes time for several cups of tea and replacing a couple of unrelated coolant pipes.

So the moral of the story is BUY A FIAT WATER PUMP. They actually fit.

Secondly because I had a chance to do this job again we used a similar method. This time we removed the top tie / stabiliser bar and the drivers side front engine mount. We tried to removed the U shaped bracket, but we needed about another 2cm engine drop to get it out. So we did have to undo the front gearbox mount (the 1 long bolt) in order to remove the U shaped bracket. With that bracket out there is a *world of room* to remove the tensioners and water pump.

Once again I didn't take any pictures but have found this picture of the U shaped bracket on the Barbz aux pulley guard thread. Hope h2ypr doesn't mind me pinching this photo. Free plug for the GB



In this photo you can see the drivers side front mount is still attached to the U shaped bracket. The U shaped bracket is attached with a very long bolt and nut. Remove the nut and use a punch tool to push the bolt out. Takes all of 5 mins to get out and makes the job up above 100% easier.

Interesting way of doing a cambelt.
Never seen it done like that before,well done though.

Not at all mate.

Ross

Cheers JBT & h2ypr