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Technical How old is this timing belt?
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Technical How old is this timing belt?
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The GP youtubers seem to be in agreement with you, that the 1.2 8V (single) is as easy as you can get. I'll need tools and the belt, so some preparation is required. Haynes lists it as 4 out of 5 difficulty though.
That looks exactly like it could break anytime, I wouldn't even want to start that engine!
Paranoia...
I'd also replace the pump and tensioner, it's just not worth the risk.
If you're on a real cheapskate mission then doing the belt might last you...
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I'm not overly paranoid in general and less so when it comes to cars because after a hundred years of incremental design improvements I think they are built to last. Routine maintenance besides most car components will still be functional whenever a car finally reaches a scrapyard. But yeah, the belt needs replacing.
I'll do the belt only because doing the water pump and tensioner will complicate the job. The water pump might leak...the tensioner that i'll get sent might not fit ,etc.
I think I paid about £60 for a full gates cambelt kit with water pump and tentioner, so it really isn’t all that much? What’s a full tank of fuel these days, oh and I paid £20 for the kit to set the timing which is mine forever or I could resell it for £20 as the price has gone up since then so no loss there.
Really it’s not that hard a job and pretty straight forward I’m sure they cover it in detail in the grande Haynes manual
Really it’s not that hard a job and pretty straight forward I’m sure they cover it in detail in the grande Haynes manual
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I had no idea it came as a kit, that'd reduce the probability of getting the wrong or faulty parts quite a lot. That is a lot cheaper than I'd imagined as well!
OK, you've all persuaded me. I'll do the full job
I got mine from Amazon.
No idea which one is right for your car but put your car's details in and then amazon will filter only the parts that fit your car.
on one occasion I ordered an airfilter and the part was wrong they refunded me no questions asked and told me to bin the filter
No idea which one is right for your car but put your car's details in and then amazon will filter only the parts that fit your car.
on one occasion I ordered an airfilter and the part was wrong they refunded me no questions asked and told me to bin the filter
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Thanks for that. Amazon is good for returns should it be required. And fast devlivery.
Looking at the pictures I wouldn't be leaving it much longer. Also, are the pictures generic or pictures of your actual belt? I ask because the top - that's camshaft - pulley can be clearly seen in these photos and that pulley is clearly a VVT pulley so the engine will NOT be a clearance design. To the best of my knowledge non of the VVT F.I.R.E. engines are clearance (non interference if you like) so if the belt lets go the pistons and valves will get to know each other intimately!
If you look closely at that top pulley you'll also see there's no timing mark/ so a locking kit will be needed unless you want to try doing it the "tippex" way which does work but there are conditions to be met and I wouldn't recommend it for someone without considerable experience.
I bought this Neilsen kit:
Which contains the following, except for the wee "pointy" thing with two shiny teeth on the top right which is a flywheel locking tool I made myself:
This kit works on all the 8 valve 4cylinder engines and I've used it on several including our own 2010 1.2 8valve Panda which doesn't have VVT and my boy's 2012 Punto 1.4 8valve which does have VVT. It's not ideal for use on the 16 valve engines as it doesn't have the screw in locking pins for the camshafts.
There's an excellent guide, by Andy Monty, on the forum here: https://www.fiatforum.com/guides/1-2-8v-evo-2-engine-cam-belt-replacement.732/ which walks you through the entire operation and you should read it before making any decisions about buying tools or having a go yourself.
In the grand order of things these belts are not difficult to do for someone with experience and a reasonable set of tools. One of the bolts holding the engine mount to the front of the engine can be difficult to access though and there are many stories on the forum of people who have run into difficulties, often ending up with the timing one tooth "out" and not understanding what's needed to correct this. There's also the Phonic Wheel "problem". I've put it in commas because it's not really a problem as long as you know you may encounter it. What happens is that after the job is done and you're out on your first decent run, you suddenly notice the check engine light has come on. If you connect to a scanner/code reader it'll likely tell you there's a misfire but when you look into it you can't find a reason. It's because there isn't any misfire it's the computer noticing that the angular signals it's picking up from the camshaft and crankshaft sensors are angularly slightly different to what they were before. It doesn't have a fault code for this but posts it's "best guess" which is the misfire code. To sort it you need to do a Phonic Wheel Relearn for which you'll need either the dealer tool or a scanner package like Multiecuscan (see the forum index for people who have them) Interestingly perhaps, I've never had an engine done by the "tippex" method or where the camshaft pulley retaining bolt was not slackened, need a Phonic relearn. Seems to happen most times though if you do slacken it - which is what the "official" procedure recommends. By the way, to get to the bolt that holds the cam pulley to the cam itself on the VVT engines you'll need to remove the screw in plug in the middle of the pulley - the retaining bolt for the pulley is under the plug, when looking at the front of the pulley what you see is the plug, not the retaining bolt which is under it. Be ready with a bunch of rags, to catch the oil which comes out of the pulley when you remove the plug! If the engine check light comes on it won't stop you driving the car but you'll fail MOT unless you get it sorted.
And last of all, I always buy a kit with belt, tensioner and water pump. I find my local factor does me a Gates kit (luckily my favourite brand) for around the same price I can buy one on line. Local factors are always worth a try and so much easier to take stuff back if incorrectly supplied. It's very strongly recommended to buy a cam cover gasket kit as well - the gasket is a rubber one and hardens with age - however some kits don't include the wee rubber O rings which seal the oilways between the head and cover, there are 4 of them. So make sure the gasket kit you buy has these. When I did Becky's belt (our 1.2 Panda) these wee seals were as hard as concrete! when fitting the gasket apply a small amount of sealant to the corners as they often leak here if assembled dry.
Hope that was helpful, good luck.
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that was my thinking. I was not 100% because I don’t have much experience of the 8v vvt engines other than the 1.4 in my grande was a vvt and the pulley in the picture did not look like the solid cast metal piece of a non vvt engine.
Hence why I questioned this somewhere further up. I am glad you have clarified this because I was happy to go with what the OP said.
I suspect the tools needed to set the timing will also be different between the vvt and non vvt engines?
Same kit for both. But you do need the wee locking tool for the sprocket - top right in my picture, the one with the shiny allen bolt through it. The one that's different is the 16 valve which locks it's cams with a couple of screw in dowels which go in on either side of the head rather than the angled bar which goes in on the back end of the cam - where it's slotted - on the 8 valve. I've never done one with hydraulic tappets.
Personally I'd rather not have to slacken the top pulley retaining bolt - as I'm sure you'll know, it's very tight and you need to hold the cam itself to stop it rotating. Don't make the mistake of thinking the angled cam locking tool, which engages with the slot on the back end of the cam, will hold it, something will break. So I like doing them by the "Tippex" method BUT, with one qualifier. You must time the engine up first using the locking tools and make sure that when the crankshaft is locked (with the "dumbell" tool) that the cam locking bar slots into the end of the camshaft thus confirming the valve timing is correct. The problem, again I'm sure you know this Andy so I'm just detailing this for general info, is that on all but the earlier engines the cam sprocket is not keyed to the camshaft nose. Once you slacken that retaining bolt on the cam pulley the pulley can rotate freely on the end of the camshaft. So, if someone has done this in the past and then not correctly repositioned everything - for which you need the locking tools - then the timing is going to be incorrect and this will affect engine running and fuel efficiency. Once you are sure the cam sprocket is correctly timed, which in my experience has been every one I've done so far, then you can do it by marking up the pulleys, belt and casings (Tippex method) without having to touch the cam pulley bolt. Some perfectionists might argue that that doesn't take into account any differences between belts but, I'd be surprised if there's any detectable difference between one belt and another in this day and age of precision engineering and quality control so, for a simple engine like this one the "Tippex Method" works just fine for me.
However, if you're not familiar with doing cam belts I'd strongly advise you follow the recommended method - see Andy Monty's guide - as doing it without slackening the top bolt is, in my opinion, why some people get it one tooth out. You'll find you can't get the belt on correctly if you lock the engine up with the crank locking tool and cam locking tool but leave the cam pulley bolt fully tightened. If you try this without slackening the bolt you can only get the belt on one tooth (or more if you're clumsy) retarded.
The VVT engine cam pulleys all have - at least every one I've seen - the pressed metal cover which retains the oil and covers the working parts of the mechanism. The non VVT pulley is a solid cast open fronted componenent. once you've seen them both you'll not confuse them. The difficulty for people trying to identify them when they simply look under the bonnet is that you can't see the pulley because of it's cover. However if you look at the cam cover, very near the oil filler cap the VVT engines have a wee cylindrical thingy sticking horizontally out of the back of the cover with a wire plugged into it. This is the solenoid which controls the oil flow/pressure to the VVT pulley. The non VVT engines have a blanking plug screwed into the hole instead.
Perhaps I should say I've not yet worked on one new enough to have the plastic cam cover so don't feel I can comment on them with authority.
Edit. By the way, both VVT and Solid cam pulleys are unkeyed unless the engine is a much earlier one. Both of our's are unkeyed. solid on the Panda and VVT on the Punto. So don't slacken the cam pulley retaining bolt if you don't have the locking tools!
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Righto, lets solve the mystery...Those are pictures of my 1.4L 8V EVO, I was checking and taking pictures of both my 1.2L 8V GP and my EVO and got the pictures muddled up.
Here are some pictures of the timing belt on my 1.2L 8V GP. I'm going to guess its non-interference but distinguishing between the two is beyond me. Can someone tell me how?
This belt is in similar condition and is the priority replacement.
hurrah, so now people are able to see the difference between the VVT pulley in your first post and the non VVT pulley in this post.
Regarding the Interference or not interference "thing". The 1.1 engines are generally accepted as all being non interference so if the belt breaks all that happens is the engine stops - You just have to hope it doesn't happen somewhere inconvenient or dangerous. The VVT engines, as far as I know, are all interference so broken belt means big bills. Now the difficult one, are all the 1.2 engines before they fitted the VVT cam, non interference - so those which look like yours, and my Panda, with the solid cast pulley. Well, I'd always thought they were but just recently, within the last year, there's been conversations on the forum where some people have said the later ones are interference! No-one seems able to say absolutely for sure or when they became so.
When I first learned this it annoyed me somewhat as I'd always felt secure in the knowledge that "Becky" was "safe" but when you actually apply a bit of serious thought to the subject having a belt break or strip some teeth or perform some other "trick" which stops the engine is the last thing you want whether it ruins the engine or not. The last thing you want is a dead engine in heavy traffic or on a motorway or almost anywhere if you think about it. So my attitude towards it is I always change belts at least by the due time/mileage and mostly somewhat before the recommended interval. and I don't even think about whether the engine is interference or not.
Oh, and by the way, I don't like the look of the belt at all. Magnifying it up you can see multiple quite deep cracking and there's some radial cracking along the base of the teeth visible in the last picture particularly. I'd be changing it right now - but I'm a well known pessimist!
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I'm guessing the extra "bulk" on the pulley means that one is VVT?
The GP is my project car that I bought as a wreck, i've done a lot of work on it and mostly enjoyed what I've done. Most of my posts on here have been about this car. So i'm not leaving the belt. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm proud of the car but i've saved a lot of money and got plenty of fresh air
It has become my main car now and is better than the EVO, but the jobs never seem to be done...I have this and a sump to do. Plus non-priority stuff.
Yup, compare the two, they look quite different. The one with the cover fixed to the front of it identifies it as a VVT pulley.
I've mentioned earlier about how I tend to be a pessimist - always thinking the worst. So the first time I did one with the VVT pulley my brain went into pessimist overdrive the night before and I went to sleep worrying about it and woke up worrying about it. Why? Well I knew that VVT pulleys allow the cam itself to advance and retard relative to the pulley so I wondered how to obtain a correct timing with the pulley able to turn through a number of degrees relative to the cam. In the event though I needn't have worried as the pulley is spring loaded towards the retarded position so behaves just like a solid pulley when not being influenced by the oil pressure. So you don't even have to do anything different with it when doing the belt. It is possible for the pulley to fail - it contains moving parts inside - so, after removing the old belt I always give them a good tug and wiggle. You shouldn't be able to either rotate it relative to the cam or feel play in it. If you can then a new pulley is needed.
The solenoid control valve on the cam cover contains a wee filter screen so, on older or high mileage cars, it's worth removing the solenoid and cleaning the filter if it needs it. You may need a new sealing ring when refitting it.
Of course, with the solid pulley there's none of this hoo ha.
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