<E30> Replaced timing belt, water pump and other belts

[Michiel van Wessem <jmvw@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi guys (includes gals),

With 142000 miles on my '87 325es and a last replacement of the timing belt
at 60000 miles, it was time to replace the timing belt. I just did that. I
replaced the timing belt, the water pump, the timing belt tensioner. Since
I liked reading the reports that other people wrote about stuff they did, I
thought I'd report to you about this operation. 

Now, I haven't worked on cars a whole lot yet, but I'm handy enough and I'm
pretty smart too. I say this just so that you won't think "what an idiot"
when you read about the mistakes I made.

The whole thing took me two days, of maybe 11 hours each (yeah!). I started
pretty late, so part I had to work in the dark, on the driveway. I had a
500 Watt halogen work light sitting on the top of my car, but the white
reflective walls of a garage would have been very nice to get a more all
around lighting. 

Getting the clutch fan out was a knuckle-scraper. Like I read in a FAQ, I
had to remove two of the four little bolts to get my regular open end
wrench in there. After doing all this stuff, it seems to me that it would
be possible to remove the radiator *before* removing the clutch fan, if you
un-clip the plastic thing that surrounds the fan and lift its bottom out of
the radiator. Then when the radiator is out, the plastic thing can be taken
out, which should give you more room to work on the clutch fan. 

I made a dumb mistake loosening the alternator tension. I didn't know that
to move the toothed rack adjustment screw, you had to loosen things, so I
used force and stripped a couple of teeth of the rack and screw. Ow! This
mistake was probably made because I didn't read my Bentley manual careful
enough. If anyone has one of these alternator brackets lying around, I'd be
interested. Because of this, when I reinstalled things, I couldn't use the
mechanism to tension the alternator/water pump belt, so I guessed about the
tension. I hope this will hold up.

Another mistake, for which I blame the Bentley manual, is that I tried to
remove the lower timing belt cover *before* taking the vibration damper
off. I bent it a little to get it off the upper mounting bolt, but nothing
serious. Had I taken off the flywheel first, there wouldn't have been a
problem. At that point I didn't know I was going to take the flywheel off
too. The Bentley manual did have things in that order. 

Oh yeah, another thing the Bentley said was that the distributor rotor
could just be pulled off. Pretty funny, considering it's fastened with
three bolts. See, this proves I'm not an idiot. If I were an idiot, I would
have put a crowbar under the rotor to pry it off (I used an Allen wrench).

I made a mistake converting torque values to foot-lbs and I broke the head
off from the lower mounting bolt for the lower timing belt cover. I guess
the bolt is now an integral part of the block. :( The cover seems tight
enough with just the top bolt. I didn't yet realize what had gone wrong and
I made the same mistake again and stripped the block threads while
tightening the long skinny bolt for the upper timing belt cover. This is
staying in place now with the additional help of a little Loc-Tite. I
should probably tap a new thread there, or use one of those thread repair
kits?

I find these mistakes tremendously frustrating. My intention is to make the
car better, not worse. I'd like to eventually get it in perfect condition,
but now I got that bolt in there and hurt the toothed rack. *Argh*. Well, I
don't think I'll be making these mistakes again.

I put a belt between the crankshaft and the alternator, put a belt on the
crankshaft and a/c, put a belt on...waitaminute. I should have put the long
belt on the crankshaft, alternator and water pump. So I had to back up
there a little. This cost me at least an hour

The bolt that holds the power steering toothed rack down to the block was
missing. Apparently the mechanic that did this last time lost the bolt and
didn't bother to put it back in. ...went out to PEP boys to get bolt, found
out that bolt wouldn't fit under pulley, cut bolt shorter... Ever tried to
saw a 9.9 strength M8 bolt? Pretty hard, even with a reciprocating saw.
Nice sparks though. ...found out that now bolt would fit in, but threads
start to deep for the bolt to grab. Fed up and in near darkness, I just
kinda stuck the bolt in there so it would hold the rack while I tightened
it. I made a point of tightening the power steering bolts very carefully. I
promise that next time I get in there, I'll take off the pulley and put in
decent bolt.

Anybody still reading this? Geez. 

Well, I got everything in there and refilled cooling system with non-toxic
propylene glycol type coolant (Sierra). To loosen the bleeder screw on the
thermostat housing, I had to take the fuel pressure regulator off. It was
almost impossible to get that thing back in. 

This morning the car was very hard to start and I discovered fuel gas was
shooting out. It turned out that getting it back in had hurt the sealing
rubber ring on the fuel pressure regulator. Some Teflon tape fixed the
problem. 

Everything seems to be working now. The little hose that connects the
radiator to the coolant reservoir (I think it's a return hose) seems to
need replacement. I'm confident about the timing belt, which is essential.
The other belts, I hope they'll stay. I'm keeping the old belts with the
car for if one ever breaks. 

I'm not entirely satisfied, but I'm glad I got things in there. Next time
I'm in there, I intend to do a more thorough job and fix some of the things
that aren't good now (the toothed rack brackets). The BMW timing belt that
was in there didn't look at all worn, btw.

Alrighty, that's it for now. Almost. Still some assorted stuff:

Soon, I'm going to be upgrading the head bolts to the Torx type. I'll set
my torque wrench carefully! I plan to go without angle gauge, just eyeball
180 degrees (in two strokes) and do one bolt at a time, following the
bolt-on pattern. Tell me if you think I'm crazy.

The backup lights don't work now. I'll probably need a new switch in the
transmission. I'm going to check that.

I did the rear shock mounts a week or so after I got the car. That was a
very rewarding experience.

Ok, good night,

Michiel

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