About to do Timing belt on 1997 Aspire, any tips?

[mexaspire]

Hi guys! I'm about to do a timing belt, timing tensioner pulley, water pump on my Aspire.
It has AC but no power steering.

Any recommendations or tips?
Thanks!

[XFSE71]

The best thing you can do is set the engine to TDC before you slack the tension. You might want to pop the distributor cap and note (mark) the position of the rotor. Look for oil leaks while there, the seals are easy to find.

[WmWatt]

Have you replaced a timing belt on a car before? When I did mine I followed the advice in the Haynes manual not to let the cranshaft or camshafts move and everything ran fine with the new belt on.

[mexaspire]

I've done timing belts before, for sure. Just a bit skittish since it seems so cramped and tight by the belt end of the engine, haha. I do have the Chilton's, I'll refer to that for sure.
I'm worried about the bolts that hold the pulley on the water pump, I guess they're easy to remove?
Thanks for the responses!

[WmWatt]

I haven't done the Aspire, just my caburetted Festiva.Once the wheel and plastic splash shield were removed I was able to to rotate the engine which requires removing the spark plugs and loosen each pulley bolt with a flex ratchet as it reached the bottom of rotation. On the Festiva there are a couple of Phillips screws holding something else on down there which I can't remember but they came off with a screwdriver socket on the same flex ratchet. The lower pulley would not come out between the block and fender until a pry bar was inserted in the top motor mount and given a shove whereupon the pulley dropped right out. The water pump pulley bolts came off by jamming a screwdriver accross two bolt heads while loosening another in turn. Don't know if any of that is relavant to the Aspire but if so hope it helps.

[mexaspire]

Thank you guys for the help!

I ended up doing it and for the most part it went smoothly. Three things did slow me down:

1. To take the crank pulley bolt off I had to lower the engine a little by loosening the motor mount, that brings the bolt lower and makes it more accessible, it was still very difficult to remove.

2. The water pump proved very difficult to remove because the bracket on the side has a diffficult bolt to get to, removed the tensioner for the AC pulley for a little more room and had to bend the bracket on the pump a little to get to it.

3. The timing belt tensioner was difficult. I loosely installed it all and then left the bolt loose so I could slide the tensioner back and wiggled the belt and the tensioner back in place. Leaving the tensioner in place and then attaching the spring proved too difficult.