timing belt change

[ipdown]

Hi guys, do I need some special tools when changing timing and pump belts?
I guess timing belt is not too hard, but what about pump? Will it need readjusting the timing?
My other car is gas 4cyl/16v redblock turbo, and I've changed its belts few times and besides of two belts (it have balance shafts) and 5 idlers it is not rocket science. But I've never messed before with VW diesel. Are there some tips and tricks which I should know?

Thanks

[hvguy]

you said it, its not rocket science...

IMO its simple as... pie? i would mark the old belt and count the teeth then put on the new belt with the same marks... just dont turn anything... especially for the cam timing, it may bend valves if done improperly...

btw, use the search button before asking questions............

[v8volvo]

you said it, its not rocket science...

IMO its simple as... pie? i would mark the old belt and count the teeth then put on the new belt with the same marks... just dont turn anything... especially for the cam timing, it may bend valves if done improperly...

btw, use the search button before asking questions............

This information is wrong.

The purpose of this forum is to provide correct info so that people are able to keep their Volvo Diesels on the road and running well. Telling someone to do it this way will have the opposite effect. I would guess that half of the Volvo Diesels in the US ended up in the junkyard because of sloppy, incorrect timing belt installations. If you use the method described above, your car will run like crap, if it runs at all, and will not live long. The "mark and pray" method is the technique many careless mechanics have used over the years on VW and Volvo diesels and at best, it results in an engine that runs bad and at worst, it can wreck the motor completely.

Changing the timing belt on a Volvo diesel is not rocket science, but you do have to be aware of the correct method, and of the stakes involved if you do it wrong. It takes several special tools that you *cannot* do without. Timing (cam and injection pump) is absolutely crucial on these motors -- if you get it wrong, the engine will go from a good runner to a hard-starting, smoking, rattling, low-power mess, and may also sustain major internal damage.

I believe that the way diesels got their bad reputation in the US is not because the engines were crappy, but because the mechanics who worked on them didn't know what they were doing and turned them into the smoky, noisy, slow engines that they have the reputation for being. Those of us on here know that when a D24/T is in good condition and tuned properly, it is smooth, quiet, peppy and smoke free... but that all changes if you screw up the timing belt. Take the time to learn the proper method and do it right, and you will be very, very glad that you did. Do some reading on this forum and you will find all the information you need to get the job done properly. If you have any questions, just ask.

Good information about these engines and how to work on them is hard to find, and I am not trying to dump on anyone here. However, I do suggest that you only provide an answer to a question if you know it is the right answer, especially if it is about something critical like a timing belt. Giving the wrong information is much worse than giving no information at all. It hurts more than it helps, and it defeats the purpose of a board like this. We all want to see as many Volvo diesels stay happily on the road as possible, and the key to that is good information and no misinformation... so let's try to keep the quality of our guidance as high as possible. Hope that makes sense. :)

[lmwatbullrun]

here, here. I second what V8V said about the reason that most volvo TDs ended up in the yard. Mine had only 150K miles on it when I got it, and the guy who had it before me, although a decent shade tree mechanic, knew nothing about how to do things properly. The ignition system requires expertise. There is a good thread here about how to change the belt and time it. Proper pump timing is one of several essentials for proper performance from a diesel. You will need the special wrenches, or a reasonable facsimile thereof (I welded up my own rather than spend the $200+), a pump timing adapter and gauge, a camshaft lock, feeler gauges, and a good set of mechanic's tools. The green books are a good idea, too, and most of them are still available from the volvo store for much less than Ebay.

[ipdown]

Well, I've read some scanned D24 (not -T) greenbooks and the special tools stopped me from doing this myself. That's why I asked. I guess I'll leave proffesionals to do this job for me. Otherwise the engine is very low mileage for it's age and in very good condition, properly mantained and absolutely beautiful!

[lmwatbullrun]

I'm not a professional mechanic, but I have been working on cars all my adult life. Diesels don't like half-way.
My calculations were that I could pay for the cost of the special tools required the first time I changed the belts; it took me about 6 hours the first time, mostly because I was checking the book and reading on the net. Now I can do it in less than 3 hours.

I like the way these cars drive and handle, and I want mine to run as well as it can. My experience with mechanics has been second hand for the very large part, but it seems difficult and expensive to get a good one, especially for diesels. If you have a good mechanic, great!. If you are looking for one for this car, I'd suggest a really good VW or Mercedes DIESEL mechanic. They are NOT the same as a good gasser mechanic. Plenty of "professionals" have screwed these cars up royally; I put more faith in learning how to do things right myself.

[Tommy Two Stroke]

This information is wrong.

The purpose of this forum is to provide correct info so that people are able to keep their Volvo Diesels on the road and running well. Telling someone to do it this way will have the opposite effect. I would guess that half of the Volvo Diesels in the US ended up in the junkyard because of sloppy, incorrect timing belt installations. If you use the method described above, your car will run like crap, if it runs at all, and will not live long. The "mark and pray" method is the technique many careless mechanics have used over the years on VW and Volvo diesels and at best, it results in an engine that runs bad and at worst, it can wreck the motor completely.

Changing the timing belt on a Volvo diesel is not rocket science, but you do have to be aware of the correct method, and of the stakes involved if you do it wrong. It takes several special tools that you *cannot* do without. Timing (cam and injection pump) is absolutely crucial on these motors -- if you get it wrong, the engine will go from a good runner to a hard-starting, smoking, rattling, low-power mess, and may also sustain major internal damage.

I believe that the way diesels got their bad reputation in the US is not because the engines were crappy, but because the mechanics who worked on them didn't know what they were doing and turned them into the smoky, noisy, slow engines that they have the reputation for being. Those of us on here know that when a D24/T is in good condition and tuned properly, it is smooth, quiet, peppy and smoke free... but that all changes if you screw up the timing belt. Take the time to learn the proper method and do it right, and you will be very, very glad that you did. Do some reading on this forum and you will find all the information you need to get the job done properly. If you have any questions, just ask.

Good information about these engines and how to work on them is hard to find, and I am not trying to dump on anyone here. However, I do suggest that you only provide an answer to a question if you know it is the right answer, especially if it is about something critical like a timing belt. Giving the wrong information is much worse than giving no information at all. It hurts more than it helps, and it defeats the purpose of a board like this. We all want to see as many Volvo diesels stay happily on the road as possible, and the key to that is good information and no misinformation... so let's try to keep the quality of our guidance as high as possible. Hope that makes sense. :)



Good point about doing what we can to keep these engines out of the junkyards by giving them proper care and maintenance. It's indeed a sad sight seeing a diesel Volvo in a junkyard.

Re: timing setting procedures, I've actually had quite good results with simply transferring the timing marks from the old belt to the new belt, prior to installing the new belt. I have the injection pump depth gauge, and each time I've done the job by transferring the timing marks and installing the new belt, I check the injection timing and it has not been off by much at all. As with anything, I think there are limits and extremes. If the engine is mechanically sound and running well prior to the timing belt change, and you put hte everything back EXACTLY the way you found it, the engines generally run quite well with performance similar or identical to that which the engine had prior to the timing belt changed. I've owned D24's and D24T's for 17 years now, and am fortunate enough to have quite a bit of time under my belt working on them.

[v8volvo]

Good point about doing what we can to keep these engines out of the junkyards by giving them proper care and maintenance. It's indeed a sad sight seeing a diesel Volvo in a junkyard.

Re: timing setting procedures, I've actually had quite good results with simply transferring the timing marks from the old belt to the new belt, prior to installing the new belt. I have the injection pump depth gauge, and each time I've done the job by transferring the timing marks and installing the new belt, I check the injection timing and it has not been off by much at all. As with anything, I think there are limits and extremes. If the engine is mechanically sound and running well prior to the timing belt change, and you put hte everything back EXACTLY the way you found it, the engines generally run quite well with performance similar or identical to that which the engine had prior to the timing belt changed. I've owned D24's and D24T's for 17 years now, and am fortunate enough to have quite a bit of time under my belt working on them.

I agree. If your engine is set up right and running well to begin with, AND you know what the proper procedures are, and you *choose* not to use them and do the job with belt marks instead, but you still go back and check everything afterwards and verify that your work's results met the necessary specs, then that's a fine method. However, that's completely different from believing that all you have to do is mark the belt and slap it on without checking anything, like you would on an old redblock gasser Volvo. When it gets to be a bad idea is when you either don't know what the correct precedure is at all and are ignorant of the risks of doing it wrong, or when you may be aware of the right way to do it, but are unwilling to go to the effort, or are unwilling to correct things if you find out after you do it that the timing ended up coming out a bit... etc.

For me, the easiest thing to do is to just do the job completely every time. Since you are installing the dial indicator to check timing anyway, and getting to TDC, etc, I don't think it takes much longer to break the cam sprockets free and pull the valve cover off than it does to mess with marking the belt and sprockets, transferring marks, checking that they all line up, etc... and if after all that, you discover that due to a slight difference in belt length, manufacturing variation, different tension, etc your timing didn't end up just right, you are going to have to go back and re-do it all the correct way anyway, and that ends up taking quite a bit more time than if you had done the complete procedure in the first place. If you get lucky and get a new belt that is just like the old one, then your method may save you some time, but I would think the odds would be good you'd have to redo it most of the time. But maybe not. I've never tried it that way so I have no data. Who knows.

Either way, it sounds like you know what the critical points are, so as long as the same end result is achieved, it doesn't matter how you got there. The rest is a matter of preference. :)

[RLDSL]

I have purchased a number of dead and near death diesel volvos over the years , mostly from boneyards, almost ALL of them had had recent timing belt changes at a reputable shop right before being declared dead. Upon checking, I found them ALL to be WAY off. in one case I purchased the carcase directly from the shop that had screwed one up, a highly reputable foreign car repair shop, and he didn't pitch for the special tools, he just tried to swap on a belt and it turned the thing into a trot line sinker, he even tried to take ot to a diesel specialty shop after to get it running and they couldn't , so thinking that you can put a belt on one of these without the tools is just plain crazy. Even going to a dealer isn't going to help you, they generally don't have anyone with teh tools or knowledge to do teh job correctly either ( back when I still had my shop open, the local dealer would send diesels my way, as I own the only complete set of tools and books for teh things within a few state area, and it was a rare occasion, I owned most of teh diesel volvos in the state)

The only way to do it is with the method in the green manual. DO NOT use Chiltons, there are errors in it ( chiltons did a poor attempt to copy info from the green manual and botched a few things up )
A good VW diesel mechanic can usually take care of it, otherwise never trust a general mechanic. THey don't own the tools and are not about to spend $500 on special tools to do a job, and will very often lie about being properly equipped since they own a bunch of general timing belt tools, they THINK they can do the job. If you have to spend $850-1000 to get it done, then DO IT, this is not a rediculous amount of money for a repair in thes times, going rate for a 960 timing belt is $900-1200 and that job doesn't even require any special tools and most guys could do it blindfolded.

You need the dial indicator ( the set for a d24/d24t, not the VW set, the dial face on teh vw set is too large and will not allow you to adjust the pump, the d24 set includes a small face dial indicator that will allow movement of teh pump, these are available on ebay germany fairly cheap ), lock plate set for timing, a crankshaft counterhold tool to keep from turning the engine while popping the crank bolt off, The crank bolt extention tool is highly reccomended unless you just happen to own a 3/4" drive torque wrench that goes to around 350 ft lbs and the appropriate 3/4" drive socket for teh crank ( trying to use a 1/2" drive socket and 1/2-3/4" adapter will result in an adapter twisted in half ) and you need the special wrench for teh rear cam gear bolt

While a 16v gasser t belt job isn't exactly a walk in the park, especially if you have to rebuild the countershaft setups in teh process, it is still childsplay compared to a t belt on a d24.
One thing the bookdoesn't mention, but I always use a dab of locktite on teh cam bolts , flange and the front taper. Even when properly torqued , these things CAN vibrate loose and will destroy the engine if not caught. The locktite will prevent that from happening.

[nick]

Thanks for the great tips. If its the Lord's will, I'll soon be changing my head gasket, so I definitely appreciate the advice.

[Jason]

One thing I am proud to say this forum has accomplished is bringing together a great knowledge base. There is alot of experience with the D24 among quite a few of the members here, all you have to do is ask! We all want to see these cars and engines stay running and on the road.

Jason

[hvguy]

any news on if this guy grenaded the engine? im very interested in what METHOD he used...