Maintenance interval for TIMING BELT?

Hi
How often should I change the Timing Belt?
Regards -- Gary
Atlanta ..... Still waiting for some good rain....

About every 100,000 miles

Timing Belt - Thanks for reply

Timing Belt - Thanks for reply

Good
And thanks for the reply.
I feel better now. I had the belt done about 40K ago.
I guess I am good until the car dies.
Gary

Ford technically does not specify a replacement interval. Because zetecs are of a non-interference design, no damage will occur to your engine should the belt break. It will just stall and leave you stranded.

That said, it is somewhat easier to replace a belt with the engine still in proper time, than to replace it after it has already broken or jumped a tooth.

I would pop the upper timing cover off every year or so and look at the belt's condition. When it seems to be deteriorating, go ahead and change it.

Recommended is 60,000 miles. I'd say somewhere between 100,000-120,000 miles.

Matt R said:

Recommended is 60,000 miles. I'd say somewhere between 100,000-120,000 miles.

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well the general recomendation is 60k, someone once posted about a call to Ford to find out and they pretty much opened it up to 100k.


do note at 104k my belt looked brand new still but the tensioner pulley was about to split in half :help: all other pulleys where well worn. so that could be more important then the belt itself.

BrApple said:

do note at 104k my belt looked brand new still but the tensioner pulley was about to split in half :help: all other pulleys where well worn. so that could be more important then the belt itself.

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My tensioner pulley physically broke 1/4 of it's surface off. The resulting belt was then wearing pretty quickly. This all took place at 68,000 miles.

BrApple said:

do note at 104k my belt looked brand new still but the tensioner pulley was about to split in half :help: all other pulleys where well worn. so that could be more important then the belt itself.

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Indeed. I find it interesting that most shops do not, as a matter of standard procedure, replace the tensioners when they change the belt. As you pointed out, they do wear.

It's often a good idea to replace the water pump at the same time, since most of the labor is done already. On the other hand, water pump failure on zetecs seems to be very rare.

Nylon belts these days last a very, very long time. I have NEVER seen a serpentine belt break, nor have I seen a timing belt SNAP. What usually happens when timing belts fail is one or more of the teeth break off.

I think the bottom line is, if it's getting past 60,000 miles, start planning to change it sometime, but don't rush. These are a pain to do, so make sure you have a weekend free and ample motivation before you try anything.

At 114K miles some of the teeth wore off of my belt.

I replaced the belt without replacing the tensioner, and the belt would walk off of the pulleys. So, I had to replace it again a month or two later along with the tensioner and idler pulleys.

I would also like to note that I purchased my car with 59k miles on it, and the belt had already been changed along with the pulleys. Well we're pretty sure anyways, because the pulleys looked newer than they should

the original maintenace guide from ford that i have says 120,000 miles as the service replacement for the timing belt. i agree with the above replies that 90-100k would be the best recommendation.

My concern isn't so much engine damage as the fact that it's instantaneous engine failure. It's easy to see where this could be a problem: making a left turn that you really know better than to do but hey, you've waited 3 min for a break in traffic, or driving from the hunting lodge into the town of East Moosescat, MN in January.

60,000 sounds good to me.

actually its not just the belt you should replace, its the idlers and tensioner as well.

My timing belt broke today.

My timing belt broke today.

mcgarvey said:

Ford technically does not specify a replacement interval. Because zetecs are of a non-interference design, no damage will occur to your engine should the belt break. It will just stall and leave you stranded.

That said, it is somewhat easier to replace a belt with the engine still in proper time, than to replace it after it has already broken or jumped a tooth.

I would pop the upper timing cover off every year or so and look at the belt's condition. When it seems to be deteriorating, go ahead and change it.

Click to expand...

My timing belt broke today while driving on the highway. No metallic sounds but rather it sounded like something flapping, I thought, around a drive axle.
I pulled the timing belt cover back a little and the belt was loose. The car has about 96,000mi. I bought a belt at napa before they closed. Now I'm wondering if the engine is an interference or not. I looked at the Auto- Zone site for the how- to on timing belt changes, and it said it is an interference engine.
So does anyone have first hand information, or better yet, experience with the broken belt repair.

No it is NOT an interference engine. Your car is completely fine. However, I DO recommend changing the pulleys along with the belt, or else your new belt can walk and wear MUCH quicker...There's actually a timing belt KIT you can buy, like on www.rockauto.com, that is made by Gates. It is the best thing out there. I'd return that Napa stuff and go with the Gates instead. There have been many posts about timing belt repairs on the Zetec, just do a bit of searching...

I've never changed a timing belt on the Zetec DOHC.
Is there any trick to it?
I've done a Honda SOHC and that was pretty easy all by myself.
But when it came to the 2.0L DOHC Eclipse / Neon DOHC engine
it was a real adventure. The biggest problem I had was keeping the
cams aligned so that the belt didn't wrinkle between the sprokets.
Valve spring tension forced the cams to rotate toward each other
so the belt wasn't tight across the top taking up slack that I needed
to get the belt over the crank sproket.

The job finally took 3 people working together to get the belt on.
The cam had a slot in the top where I could put a pin in to rotate the
cam to hold belt tension so one worker held the cam tension from
above while another worked from below on the crank sproket.
The third worker was the tool/beer gofer.

Thanks in advance for any advice on the Zetec.
Regards-- Gary --- Atlanta

i have done it many times by myself. both with and without the proper cam timing tools. it is much easier with the tools. they are like 20-25$ for the cam tool and crank pin. those 2 pieces will set the crank at TDC and hold the cams at TDC. its then as simple as sliding the belt on and tightening down the tensioner once you have the correct tension.

I replaced the timing belt and the tensioner and idler pulleys last week. It all seemed fine untill yesterday when the belt went again. The belt had only 400 miles on it. I suspect that the lower idler included in the Dayco kit allowed the belt to walk and it rubbed on the engine mount cover. The origional lower idler was concave shaped on it's surface, which I suspect was done to keep the belt on . The replacement part was flat. Has anyone seen this before?

Actually, no, I've never seen that before. Only flat. If the tension is correct the belt will "want" to stay centered on the pulley.

Question for you guys with VCT zetecs: Did you have to loosen the cam pulley bolts to get rid of the tension in between the pulleys? Last time I did it, I didnt loosen them, but instead marked a tooth on each pulley, and the corresponding tooth on the old belt. I then counted the number of teeth in between, and duplicated the marks in the proper place on the new belt. I took the flat metal tool out, put the belt over the cam pulleys with the marks matching, and then replaced the flat metal piece to hold the tension. At that point, I spun the crank counter clockwise a bit, set the belt with the marks matching, and then rotated it clockwise to take up the slack on the right side. I tensioned it up and all was well.

Now, some have said that it's easier just to keep the flat bar in the cam ends, put the belt all around, and then with tension on the belt, tighten those cam pulley bolts. This to me seemed like far more work, but this is the "right" way to do it.

Anyone have thoughts on my way vs. the real way? I understand that if the belt was already broken and out of time, my way wouldn't work at all. But for routine replacement, I would think it's far easier.

I have retimed the engine both ways (marking the cams and belt/timing tool) IMHO its about the same. the one advantage of marking the cams and belt is you dont have to try to loosen up the cam gear bolts.