Cambelt change - Big thanks to Kit Simmonds!

[re2500]

Yesterday I took a nice drive up towards Builth Wells, to go and visit Kit who helped me do my overdue cam belt. Kit really knows what he's doing with this and he took real care doing it!

My cam belt was actually a little over due time wise, but it turns out the belt was in really good condition and not what I should have been worrying about.
When we came to highlighting the timing marks with tippex, it was obvious the lower pulley timing mark did not line up by about 30mm we knew the car was running 100% so we put new marks on just in case.
When we removed the bottom pulley we actually just cut the old belt and removed the aux belt pulley and the crank sprocket as one (we could then remove the 4 cap head bolts in a vice.) when we removed the sprocket I was not surprised to see that the woodruff key was sheared off. What I was surprised by was how little effort was required to undo the main crank bolt but not only that! But this is the sprocket removed (take not of the witness mark where the key slot was in comparison to where the woodruff key SHOULD have been.... )........

[re2500]

..... so in short the car has been like this for 60k miles! And I would be surprised if it lasted 1k more.

We reassembled the car with new belt, tensioner, waterpump, crank sprocket, cap heads, and crank bolt. Lo and behold, all the timing marks lined up and she fired on the button.
Thanks again Kit.

[Error404]

Jeesh. Lucky escape... I've had one similar... not a nice feeling.
I hope you told Kit to get his butt on the forum and update his project

[K Simmonds]

Was a pleasure mate. That crank bolt/key way were a disaster waiting to happen! You've done a smashing job of the conversion and it goes very well, that short blast we took yesterday has inspired me to finish mine.

Alex, James did give me some encouragement to get off my lazy butt and get my S2 done, he's also kindly helping me out with a couple of bit's and pieces I need to finish off my car. I'm going back to building/carpentry pretty much full time this week, it's better paid to start with plus in words of a mechanic college of mine "this job ruins a good hobby".

I'll always try and find time to help members with their cars or do work for them, that I enjoy, what I don't enjoy is patching up piles of poop for folks who do 0 maintainace on their car and wonder why it goes wrong frequently. Some of the crap I have to deal with is just unreal, for instance this last week, lacking any antifreeze a customer put white spirit in his Fiats cooling system and now wonders why the water pump seals and head gasket failed the very next day. Anyway enough

PM coming your way shortly James

Edit, your message box is full mate!