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| Joined: | 09-10-2012 |
| Location: | Little Chute, Wisconsin USA |
| Posts: | 435 |
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The approach I used (got the idea from a friend who's a Lotus afficianado) was to set the engine at TDC with the 110 marks lined up, then take a bottle of WhiteOut and mark each gear (both cams, crank, and ignition) with a mark on one slot, and mark the old belt with a corresponding mark on the tooth in that slot. Once I had done that, it was a simple matter to remove the belt, line it up with the new one, mark the corresponding teeth on the new belt (counting the teeth between the marks to be sure) and then pop the new belt on in the appropriate location. Worked just fine, the whole process took maybe 3 hours from start to finish... I was in no hurry and I am sure it would go faster the next time since I now know exactly what has to be removed to get at it.
For posterity, here's the order I did things (I used Greg's guide as a, well, guide, but there was more to be done than he had outlined:
1. Disconnect battery and coil wires, just because.
2. Remove top half of belt guard (I have the two piece guard)
3. Attempt to remove bottom half of guard. Grumble because it won't come out at this point, too much stuff in the way.
4. Loosen alternator, remove belt. Remove fan and pulley. Skin knuckles a bunch because of proximity to radiator.
5. Look down and realize that the lower guard still isn't going to come off.
6. Remove crank pulley. This went way better than I had expected... put a 19mm socket on my ratchet, put a pipe on the handle, and had Mrs. Answerman stand on the brake pedal (since I've never had a functioning hand brake) while I first hit my knuckle with a rubber mallet (ouch!) and then the pipe a few times to break it loose. Moved engine BACK to TDC since of course it moved during this process.
7. Now I can remove the lower belt guard. Did so.
8. Got my bottle of WhiteOut and marked one tooth/slot combination on each of the 4 gears.
9. Loosened tensioner and pulled belt off the gears. Loosened upper radiator hose clamp at top of engine, pulled hose off the fitting, and snuck the belt through there. Old belt is off!
10. Removed tensioner (that actually came out fairly easily).
11. Took tensioner to bench, followed Greg's process at http://www.jensenhealey.com/tech/bearing/bearing.html to disassemble tensioner and replace the bearings. The old ones seemed fine, but since I went this far I didn't see a compelling reason to NOT replace them.
12. Put newly assembled tensioner in place, loosely.
13. Take new belt, count teeth and make new WhiteOut marks corresponding with marks on old belt.
14. Put new belt on. Take belt off, put on again because I was one tooth off on the crank gear. Triple check all marks and deem it good.
15. Tighten tensioner till the belt tension seemed about like it was on the old one (was able to twist it about 45 degrees between the oil pump/distributor gear and the intake gear).
16. Think about it for a while and decide that I am going to be one of the 12 JH owners that still has the belt guard in place. Put the lower section back on.
17. Reinstall crank pulley and fan/pulley.
18. Reinstall alternator belt and tighten.
19. Reinstall top half of belt guard.
20. Reconnect coil wire and battery cables.
21. Say a little prayer, get in, and turn key. Starts right up and seems to run as well as she ever did. Whew.