V40 1.8 GDI Camshaft Timing Belt Change.

[drone]

Just about to embark on this part of the project, anyone aware of any gotchas that may derail progress?
Started off with a bit of luck, bought a gates kit including water pump and followed the advice of someone on one of the forums that gave the link to check whether the kit was genuine.
It had all the hallmarks of a fake so I got a refund of the money I paid and picked up a hella kit for £31 on amazon, it arrived today has a contitech belt which is what I fit to my tts, toyo bearings in the idler and tensioner and a bhk pump, I have to pop over to the local volvo dealer for a new manifold to downpipe gasket and an alternator belt, can't get a pas/aircon belt for love nor money.

[drone]

After much faffing around due to weather, the crankshaft damper bolt and various other hiccups finally got the bits out.
Before dismantling I painted on the old cam belt the position of the tdc marks on the in and exh camshaft sprockets, also marked up the position on the crankshaft drive sprocket.
These positions will be transferred to the new belt.
Got the belt tensioner out and reset it in my father's 90 year old window cramp!
The first pic shows the marking on the crankshaft sprocket, second one the belt markings and the third the reset tensioner and old and new bearings.
Back out now to fit the new parts.

[drone]

I'll try and highlight some of the difficulties and how I overcame them on this job viz renewing the camshaft timing belt plus the idlers and water pump.
The major problem is the retaining bolts for the offside engine mounting; these are very long and the inner wing of the car prevents easy extraction.
Haynes manual is as much use as a chocolate fireguard. To get them out the crossmember under the gearbox must be disconnected from the engine mounts and dropped away, the engine must be supported and I used a trolley jack with an 8" square offcut off of a scaffold board to act as a spreader beneath the engine sump.
Make no mistake about it, the right hand side of the engine must be dropped about 3" to remove the lower one and then raised about 3" to get the top ones out, these figures are from the usual fitted position. If your nearside engine mount is past it, it's possible the whole shooting match could slide out instead of flexing to allow the movement.
Some of the lower belt guard retaining bolts screw into the tinware and had seized solid on my 2002 example resulting in the plastic breaking which peed me off no end.
Now for the good bit, the belt comes off easily and the new one goes on easily. Compared to an audi tt 1.8t they are a piece of p155.
The old belt on mine looks very much like the original, compared to the new belt it appears to have od'd on viagra. The bearings and waterpump appear to be the same, they are no worse for wear though and, if I hadn't had the new stuff on hand, I would have been happy to reuse them. Ditto the water pump remarkably good condition for what appears to be the original one with nearly 145000 miles on.
The rubber seals between the belt guards and the engine mount etc are almost past it and, as I haven't reassembled the engine mount yet, I'll probably use the loctite silicon sealer that I bought for the water pump to replace them rather than try to get them back in.
Now the BIG gotcha, the crankshaft damper/v-belt pulley retaining bolt.
This s.o.b was in there real tight, so much so that the tool I cobbled together out of 30 x 6 mm steel distorted, this had stood me in good stead for many a year locking crankshafts on a variety of engines that, on the face of it, were torqued up significantly harder than the volvo one.
I resorted to back street mechanics method in the end but am too ashamed to admit what I did on here.
I'll finish it off in the week if the weather holds and come back with some more pics to explain what I have done.

[druid]

Had the sump resealed today, it was an annoying drip when we had the car due to rusting of the steel sump. Fitted a new one 3 years ago.
Yippee your would think but no, the recommended sealant didn't bond to the ally only the steel. so after yet another mot with oilleak as an asvisory I finaly got it fixed.
One of the fittings bolts had shear off and 2 others were also replaced so now, at last, I will get a true oil consumption figure.

[drone]

A tip for anyone undertaking this job, after assembling the belt and associated components the hydraulic tensioner is held in the "off" position by squeezing it as shown with my dad's window frame clamp. A 2mm diameter drill is inserted through a small hole in one side of the casting then through the piston rod of the tensioner then through a hole in the other side of the casting.
This piston rod pushes against a bracket which holds the tensioning roller which is mounted on an eccentric centre.
The centre has two 3.2 mm axial blind holes drilled in it 14mm apart and after the tensioning roller is lightly clamped to the bracket the idea is to turn the eccentric by means of a tool inserted into both holes.
Access between the engine and the inner wing is limited so, with my heath robinson hat on I bent up some 2.5mm piano wire as per pic 1, pic 2 shows how it works using the old roller. You will see in pic 1 that the jaws of the wire are greater apart than the 14mm, this allows them to spring outward and hold themselves in place. This tendency can be improved by bending the last 3 or 4mm of each leg slightly (about 1mm max) so they have to be forced into the blind holes which are only a few mm deep.
Hopefully these pix will explain what I rather long windedly tried to do above.

[drone]

Right, after sorting the tool out, lightly clamp the bolt onto the roller and insert the tool and twist until there is no clearance between the piston rod and the bearing point on the lever.
Holding the home made tool, torque up the bolt to the appropriate torque, I did a couple of trial runs and then took the bolt out and put thread lock on it then pulled it up.
The belt is now taut enough to rotate the engine through two turns to check all the marks line up, as I'd bought new plugs (ouch price wise) I removed the old ones to make this job easier and also to feel if there are any obstructions eg valves hitting pistons or each other which is a bloody good sign to stop pronto.

[drone]

Just a heads up as it nearly caught me out, when you come to tighten the cam belt turn the eccentric counter clockwise it seems it's the right way to go. I took the bloody tensioner bracket off a couple of times in my efforts to fathom this out.
When you come to tighten the holding bolt for the eccentric you WILL need to hold the eccentric with the tool. Once the bolt is torqued up, pressure on the spanner with a fingertip against the bracket lug/tensioner rod interface will reveal some movement, ideally this should be less than a millimetre which will allow the tensioner AFTER you have removed the 2mm drill at least 7 - 8mm of extension allowing sufficient time between belt renewals to avoid retensioning the belt. If it is much more, then, in the words of the song, "there may be trouble ahead da-di-da....."
Hope this helps.

[drone]

Last little tip, please note if you have to ask any questions your level of competency is inadequate and you shouldn't undertake this task as I have no control over numpties, Sorry it's the law of the jungle.
Anyway, undoing the crankshaft pulley bolt. This is torqued up pretty tight and the tool that haynes recommend is laughable.
There are several ways of both undoing and tightening this bolt, one involves a certain amount of risk and is only useful for undoing the bolt. The other is loosen or tighten and is much more convenient.
Method a. you will need an impact socket for this, plus a 600 mm breaker bar you'll also need this for method b.
fit the socket on the bolt head with the breaker bar and adjust the breaker bar so it is about 50 mm from the front wishbone, disconnect the spark plug coils electrically then crank the engine. The breaker bar hits the front wishbone and should break the torque on the bolt after a few goes. I do not like this way.
Method b. Disconnect the battery and put the car into 5th gear insert a strong screwdriver into one of the vent slots on the front brake disc and rotate the engine until this locks against the carrier for the pads, apply great strength to your breaker bar and it will shift, to tighten the bolt do the same but on the opposite side of the caliper.
The torque for the bolt far exceeds the torque of the GDI engine so is also a check for a slipping clutch ie if it slips you're probably not far off needing a new clutch.
To apply great strength to break the torque whilst undoing the bolt, put the handle of your breaker bar into the cup on the lifting end of a hydraulic trolley jack and pump it up nice and slow, IT WILL SHIFT IT but take care the breaker bar/socket etc don't fly off as it could ruin your day USE AN IMPACT SOCKET and you should be ok.

[drone]

With respect to my last post, one might ask why not use an impact gun, I immensely dislike using these on car engines, the amount of hammering the gun performs COULD have a deleterious effect on the bearings in the conrods etc so they are definitely a no-no for me.
I have one, a 500nm mains driven affair and its use for me is the quick removal of wheel nuts (but not the replacement) and shifting turbo to manifold bolts on my TT.