197 Timing Belt Change

[sidmon]

Looking in the near future into replacing the timing belt/water pump/dephaser pulley and reseal a leaking cam cover on a 197. Watched and read until my head hurts on changing it and will be buying the relevant timing tools. I have a few questions:

Will removal of the cam cover and resealing with the relevant sealant involve much extra work?

Although I accept that genuine Renault items is the ideal scenario, I've seen a timing belt kits by Gates or Dayco for substantially less than their Renault counterparts and I hear Gates make them originally for Renault and the Dayco ones are OE.

The timing tools are also available from Gates at a cheaper price than the Renault equivalent, again is it a good saving or a fools route?

Thanks in advance!

 

[colesy]

I’d go genuine Renault for all. Renault parts direct have great prices.
Also aftermarket timing tools like to bend/fail so better getting genuine. You can always buy the tools and sell them on for not much less than you pay for them new

 

[sidmon]

Has anyone on here ever bought and used the Gates tools?

 

[jameswrx]

I’d imagine they’d be perfectly fine if made by Gates.

 

[RSRowe]

Gates are not a poor make by any means.
I did the change on mine with the Sealey locking kit. It’s essentially a box with 3 pins in. No way of locking the pulleys together if you wanna change the dephaser safely though.

 

[Robbie Corbett]

I would be happy with the gates kit, but I would use Renault tools. The Gates might well be cheaper but the Renault items will have a higher resale price so you will potentially recoup more of your money. Many sell tools on once used so you may find (like I did) a set of timing tools in the for sale section of this forum or on eBay.

I changed belts, depahser and water pump with engine out of the car as my gearbox was also done at the same time.

For the sake of £100 (or what ever the difference in price between gates and Renault parts) I would likely just use the genuine parts as that would be more attractive to a future buyer especially given that you are doing the belts yourself which will put people off anyway.

 

[sidmon]

Started the job and taking my time and getting on OK.

Both belts off, water pump removed, cam pulley and dephaser removed. Rocker cover removed and resealed with Loctite 518 albeit I spread the sealant thinly with a surgical gloved hand as had no roller. That's been refitted and torqued down and that'd as far as I got due to time restraints and having other things to get on with.

Just a quick query regarding fitting cam seals, the guide shows a special fitment tool which I haven't got but others seem to think it's not really required....will I be OK fitting them without the tool?

Water pump fitment guides I've seen show it being fitted with dry with gasket only and no sealant additionally added, whereas others state they always add some just as a precaution....what's everyone elses take?

 

[MicKPM]

Water pump - absolutely NO sealant required on a genuine pump/gasket combo. Just make sure the mating face is clean and has no traces of old gasket remains. Bolt up finger tight, make sure the bearing runs ok, finally torque to spec and that's it... job, jobbed!

Cam seals (assuming timing end) - No tools required except the up-most care and attention when installing the Inlet cam seal. It's a plastic seal and very easy to wreck/damage/deform and then it'll leak so don't do a full send with a hammer! We use the tool because we do loads but any socket should do. Just make sure they go in true and make sure the outer face is level with cylinder head face when installed, other wise you'll set the too shallow/deep and they may leak. If they're not true the cam will wear the lip seal prematurely and you'll be doing the entire job again due to oil saturation in the timing case.

 

[MicKPM]

I would be happy with the gates kit, but I would use Renault tools. The Gates might well be cheaper but the Renault items will have a higher resale price so you will potentially recoup more of your money. Many sell tools on once used so you may find (like I did) a set of timing tools in the for sale section of this forum or on eBay.

I changed belts, depahser and water pump with engine out of the car as my gearbox was also done at the same time.

For the sake of £100 (or what ever the difference in price between gates and Renault parts) I would likely just use the genuine parts as that would be more attractive to a future buyer especially given that you are doing the belts yourself which will put people off anyway.

Gates kits are utter Chinesium trash these days, so spend the extra and just get the OE kit. They only Gates component in the OE kit is the belt itself. It's the nasty water pump they bundle has a bearing that I wouldn't trust on a set of bike stabilisers and the rest of the furniture just looks cheap.

We had issues sourcing the OE belt kits late last year and I had various aftermarket kits in for a quality inspection exercise. The only aftermarket kit which used the complete OE furniture and a quality belt was Dayco (Although they supplied the wrong crank pulley bolt and nasty/cheap end caps).

You're doing the job once every 5-6 years... spend the extra £20 and buy once, cry once.

 

[Robbie Corbett]

Gates kits are utter Chinesium trash these days, so spend the extra and just get the OE kit. They only Gates component in the OE kit is the belt itself. It's the nasty water pump they bundle has a bearing that I wouldn't trust on a set of bike stabilisers and the rest of the furniture just looks cheap.

We had issues sourcing the OE belt kits late last year and I had various aftermarket kits in for a quality inspection exercise. The only aftermarket kit which used the complete OE furniture and a quality belt was Dayco (Although they supplied the wrong crank pulley bolt and nasty/cheap end caps).

You're doing the job once every 5-6 years... spend the extra £20 and buy once, cry once.

Thats a shame, gates were historically great quality.

The gates water pump I put on my M3 was indistinguishable from OEM, the casting was actually better if anything and bearing has been fine for last 20k. So perhaps they have gone down hill over the last year?

 

[sidmon]

Gates kits are utter Chinesium trash these days, so spend the extra and just get the OE kit. They only Gates component in the OE kit is the belt itself. It's the nasty water pump they bundle has a bearing that I wouldn't trust on a set of bike stabilisers and the rest of the furniture just looks cheap.

We had issues sourcing the OE belt kits late last year and I had various aftermarket kits in for a quality inspection exercise. The only aftermarket kit which used the complete OE furniture and a quality belt was Dayco (Although they supplied the wrong crank pulley bolt and nasty/cheap end caps).

You're doing the job once every 5-6 years... spend the extra £20 and buy once, cry once.

Already got everything and it's all genuine stuff 👍

 

[sidmon]

Water pump - absolutely NO sealant required on a genuine pump/gasket combo. Just make sure the mating face is clean and has no traces of old gasket remains. Bolt up finger tight, make sure the bearing runs ok, finally torque to spec and that's it... job, jobbed!

Cam seals (assuming timing end) - No tools required except the up-most care and attention when installing the Inlet cam seal. It's a plastic seal and very easy to wreck/damage/deform and then it'll leak so don't do a full send with a hammer! We use the tool because we do loads but any socket should do. Just make sure they go in true and make sure the outer face is level with cylinder head face when installed, other wise you'll set the too shallow/deep and they may leak. If they're not true the cam will wear the lip seal prematurely and you'll be doing the entire job again due to oil saturation in the timing case.

Cheers for your input, I'll go ahead without any sealant then 👍

 

[Robbie Corbett]

Longest belt change ever Jan 2021! 😅

Good luck with it.

 

[sidmon]

Longest belt change ever Jan 2021! 😅

Good luck with it.

True 😂😂

 

[sidmon]

Take it this is the dephaser seal, and the seal without the fitting spacer sleeve is the actual cam sprocket sides seal?

 

[sidmon]

Also noticed on all the guides they never seem to change the crank seal while doing this job? Mine isn't leaking bit I'm pondering whether to do that too while I'm there? Does that require any special tools?

 

[MicKPM]

All lip seals can be done without the tooling so long as you fit them ‘true’ and that you don’t damage/deform them. They’re all pretty easy with the exception of that inlet cam seal, which is plastic. Disrespect it in any way and it’ll leak!

The plastic seal has a guide installed, mainly to protect it in transit but also to aid installation. It’ll slide over the camshaft allowing you to install it and not risk snagging the lip on the metal edge.

 

[sidmon]

All done and putting it back together but can't work out exactly where these go in the replacement of inlet manifold. Pictures of what's left and the holes left.

Anyone know?

 

[sidmon]

Think I've found how it fits.....hopefully

 

[sidmon]

Took my time and chipped away at it but it's complete. The one thing I'd say over the guides is they often assume that the crank sprocket is floating too but on mine it was keyed. This meant I couldn't rotate the belt around with the exhaust pulley and dephaser loose, had to instead tighten them up and rotate entire engine off crank. Nervous on starting it, but it fired into life.

 

[JamesBryan]

Took my time and chipped away at it but it's complete. The one thing I'd say over the guides is they often assume that the crank sprocket is floating too but on mine it was keyed. This meant I couldn't rotate the belt around with the exhaust pulley and dephaser loose, had to instead tighten them up and rotate entire engine off crank. Nervous on starting it, but it fired into life.

From factory it wouldn't have been keyed. Only the Megane ones were keyed, so it has probably been done by the previous owner.

Safer having the keyway.

 

[RSRowe]

Pretty sure all the Mk3’s are keyed. I’ve not seen one which isn’t yet.

 

[JamesBryan]

Pretty sure all the Mk3’s are keyed. I’ve not seen one which isn’t yet.

Oh are they 😅

 

[sidmon]

Since doing the job only been knocking around town in it but had a good drive in it the other week and it didn't feel "quick", also on raising the revs say to pull away there was a slight hesitation which I initially put down to the car having to "learn" throttle responses but it never improved. I've stripped it again and found this:

As you can see it's clearly out of time, but ran fine other than what was low power on hard acceleration and that delayed initial throttle response.

My question is now how do I go about rectifying this? I know I'll need to lock it all up again and remove the dephaser and exhaust pulleys but will I be able to do this and time it up again without removing the crank pulley and auxiliary belt? I presume I'll need to turn the dephaser pulley before refitting and help on how to do this would be useful, the Renault guides on how to do it aren't clear to me. Would I get away with reusing my dephaser pulley bolt and exhaust pulley nut?

Cheers in advance

 

[Robbie Corbett]

Since doing the job only been knocking around town in it but had a good drive in it the other week and it didn't feel "quick", also on raising the revs say to pull away there was a slight hesitation which I initially put down to the car having to "learn" throttle responses but it never improved. I've stripped it again and found this:

View attachment 1586472View attachment 1586472View attachment 1586472

As you can see it's clearly out of time, but ran fine other than what was low power on hard acceleration and that delayed initial throttle response.

My question is now how do I go about rectifying this? I know I'll need to lock it all up again and remove the dephaser and exhaust pulleys but will I be able to do this and time it up again without removing the crank pulley and auxiliary belt? I presume I'll need to turn the dephaser pulley before refitting and help on how to do this would be useful, the Renault guides on how to do it aren't clear to me. Would I get away with reusing my dephaser pulley bolt and exhaust pulley nut?

Cheers in advance

So I've been thinking on how I would do GRP N timing the morning before a dyno session and I believe there is a very bodge tastic way to do it (which should also work for you).

With plugs out rotate engine so that cylinder 1 is on its TDC stroke, when the cams line up (well enough) stop. You might not be able to use the normal locking tool as the cams don't look like they will line up however you need to use something to keep the cams fairly in position.

With someone holding the crank in place with ideally a breaker bar loosen the cam pulley bolts (ideally with a gun) - at this point you should be able to spin the cams with the pulleys static, rotate crank until the crank locking tool drops in (remember cylinder 1 should be TDC), with that done use the horse shoe locking tool to align cams... sort tensioner out, spin engine over loads and keep checking the tensioner.

Rremember not to lock cams with the horse shoe tool while undoing the pulleys......

However! I would just do it properly mate, you've either cocked something up (tensioner probably as the cams are no longer in phase) or a pulley has slipped - neither is great so just repeat the whole process per book. It can be tedious getting the slack out of the belt well enough so that the cams are properly lined up but clearly its not impossible!

Good luck.

 

[sidmon]

Thanks for coming back so quick, I've got all the locking tools so can lock both pulleys with the special tool to enabling the loosening of them......just would have to align them up as close as possible bearing in mind they're out of time.

 

[Robbie Corbett]

Can you get a photo of your tensioner in its current position?

 

[sidmon]

Not the best picture but hopefully you can see it enough.

 

[Robbie Corbett]

Not really no, I can see it exists if that helps

 

[JamesBryan]

Tensioner doesn't 'look' to be in quite the right position there, but hard to say for certain.

Need a straight on look at it or with a mirror.

 

[sidmon]

True! 🤣🤣

This is better hopefully, you can see the tensioner has loosened a little.

 

[JamesBryan]

It may not have loosened, but possibly that the belt tension has probably evened out now?

Did you turn the engine over by hand at least 6 times and recheck the tension?

 

[sidmon]

Yes, did it around 10 times actually.

 

[Robbie Corbett]

How very odd! Wondering if a pulley has slipped. Knowing why the timing has moved is going to be useful info for you I think!

 

[sidmon]

I'm thinking reset timing and see how we get on going forward, new end cap seals can be bought for less than a fiver so no big loss. I'm just wondering if I'm ok to reside that pulley nut and bolt. Also need to clean all oil residue so dephaser doesn't have issues, oh and as I said before need to learn dephaser locking routine or should it be fine to refit as it is?

 

[RSRowe]

I’d put the crank pin in first before launching yourself into undoing things.

 

[sidmon]

Will I need to lock the dephaser pulley before refitting and will I be safe to reuse the pulley nuts and bolts again? 🤔

 

[RSRowe]

Yes you’ll need to lock them to safely undo the pins.

 

[sidmon]

Sorry, don't think I made it clear. One I've locked the engine up at the timing point and removed the dephaser pulley, will I need to lock the dephaser pulley with a ratchet as per Renault guide states before refitting it?

 

[sidmon]

Seems the dephaser pulley should automatically lock once the oil pressure drops (i.e. car engine not running).