im going to be changing my timing belt on my taco on thanksgiving and have a question. do i or do i not need any special tools. i have heard conflicting reports so i am very confused! if i do need some special tools is it something that i can pick up at auto zone through the loan a tool thing?thanks!!!!

 

There is a tool to collapse the timing belt tensioner pulley. I have no knowledge of its availabity at your local parts house. I purchased mine from the tool dealer ( Snap on, or Mac ).

There is another way around collapsing the tensioner, which involves pinning the tensioner before disassembly. You would need to use a pry bar on the tensioner to gentally relax it slowly, then put a pin in the hole. This requires care and some skill to avoid damaging the tensioner.

Best bet would be to try to find the tool.

 

Wow a master toyota tech on board...cool. Hey I got a question while on the subject of T-belts. Generally at your dealership do you use the special tools to pull off cranshaft pulleys or do you use the two pry bar method to wiggle it off? I...uh, hate to admit it, but doing a timing belt job I used the two pry bar method, and the second time I did that, I broke the lower cover (or gave it a nice little crack ).

 

When I did T-belt/Waterpump job on 97 4Runner SR5 4WD, I made up a sort of custom tool (pry bar) which can fit into the crank pulley (parts for the tool was supplied in local Home Depot....

Well, of course, if I can have the OEM tool to do it, that would have been ideal and saved me the time to prepare such custom tool. But of course, it is pricey and moreover, I have been doing T-belt service on multiple cars with the same method, which means it was proven-technique at least to me... meaning I was sorta confident doing T-belt service in such way....

Of course, such kind of alternative approach is somewhat risky (chances of damaging crank pulley or other component in engine bay etc) so if you are doubt but still want to do t-belt service yourself, you better find out the best tool from dealer or very specialized too shop etc (snap-on may have it, didn't check it myself though...).

good luck!

 

jared,

i'm just venturing a guess and forgive me if i'm doubting your mechanical abilities, but from your previous posts, i would say that youre about a novice to beginner in terms of fixing your car. i hope i'm wrong but changing the timing belt is not the only thing that usually needs to be done. you may also consider changing your water pump and thermostat as well while you have everything off....do you know how to do that as well?

it can be a major chore for a novice, so just be forewarned. in addition, such a chore is sometimes best left to the experts. i paid a little over $500 for a toy dealership to do it in my area. and that was the total price including parts and labor.

Bob

 

fyi, (and a tinge off-topic) there're a couple of them here. DarylD is one, and I think there's at least one more.

 

May I add also that while you are at it, check your seals behind each crank pulley to make sure you don't have a leaks, now would be the best time to replace those since you have everything off. Just as preliminary caution, I replaced both idler pulleys too, since I had purchased the part before I started just in case an issue could arise when I pulled everything off.

I heard the worst vehicle to do a T-belt is a Mistusbshi 3000GT, 4 main crank pulleys among a bunch others. Anyone have any other contendors?

 

I wish they'd speak up, I have much respect for the Master Technicians, they go through a lot of training. In my opinion they are just as professional as doctors.

 

They tend to be incredibly busy folks... DarylD is local to me, and I know he's working weird hours at a dealership, not to mention finding family time, time for some side work, and then time to work on his own rig.

 

I just did the timing belt on me 90 3.slow, and the water pump, and the thermostat, and the idlers, and the belts, and the coolant, and the oil, and the whole ****ing engine it would seem....lol

Anyhow it was not what I would describe as easy, but not hard either. Just tedious. Make SURE you have a toyota service repair manual and take pictures along the way. Doing that saved me when I was reinstalling the fan idler.... (It took me 5 days to do the swap after work)


FYI, the grade 8/10 bolt or whatever the hell that monster is that holds your crank pulley on there is TORQUED DOWN hard from the factory. On the 3vze it is torqued to 181 ftlbs!! I added blue locktite to make sure it wouldnt go anywhere upon reassembly.

I was able to immobilize the crank pully using an old belt cut up to just fit in the whole crank v on both pullys, then added a towel, then used a BIG chain wrench and a piece of tire tread all in the name of protecting that crank pully. For the bolt I just used a 24" long, 1/2" drive breaker bar bought from harbour freight tools for 9 bux. (30" handle chain wrench was 11 there too. ) Worked quite well actually.

However if I were to do this again, I'd buy the SST and avoid the mid torque worry of FUBARing the crank pully.

 

I used an impact gun to take off the crank pulley bolt, don't know how good or proper that is, but techs what do you guys think?

 

have to be careful with impact guns.. they may torque the bolt soo much that it snaps off... and trying to get out a bolt with 180 ft/lbs with a stud extractor isnt easy

 

Can it even be done with such a high torque without breaking the extractor bit? Obviously, you'd have to try, otherwise new crankshaft time. I suppose you can drill the bolt as much as you can out, however what happens when you come to retap a crankshaft? I never have retapped a crankshaft either, does that also work?

 

This is a bit confusing to me...

(I dun't know the real terminology here, but I'll try to explain what I'm thinking)

When you tighten down a bolt, the holding force (which is the measured torque) is between the wider part of the head pushing against the piece with the threads of the bolt providing the anchor, right?

So if you snap the head off, isn't the holding force remove? Thus the torque goes to zero (outside of the friction of the bolt threads in the hole)?

 

that would make sense, however I sure wouldnt want to have to try extract that busted off bolt!!

Now that I think about the timing belt swap, can one swap the oil pump too without dropping the diff and oil pan?