We got together on Friday the 13th to make some more progress. While it feels like we got a few steps forward, we didn’t actually manage to finish anything yet.
Currently, we’re working on three tasks: Complete the timing belt change; catalog the spares and parts in and around the car; empty the fuel tank of the old gas. None of the parts got cataloged, but progress was made on the timing belt and problems were found with the fuel system.
For the timing belt to be removed from the engine, the crank pulley needed to come off and the tensioner needed to be relaxed. Pulling the crank pulley was simple – the five bolts zipped out and the pulley easily slid off.
The service manual, translated from the Italian a couple decades before Google Translate became a thing, says that to remove the “belt stretcher” – by which they mean the timing belt tensioner – you’re supposed to loosen the cap locking bolt, compress the spring to release the tension, tighten the locking bolt, and then remove the tensioner and the “jockey pulley”. I, however, decided to try to remove the tensioner without re-reading the manual and didn’t remember any of that. Instead, I took the mounting bolts out of the tensioner to remove it and then slid the old timing belt off. Either way, the job was complete. Two bits of good news came from this. First of all, the water pump bearing feels smooth and is quiet. Secondly, the tensioner pulley bearing was a disaster!
The tensioner pulley is removed by taking off the snap ring and sliding it over its mounting peg. The corrosion meant that it took considerable effort to remove the pulley, but once it was off, I could disassemble it so the bearing could be replaced.
Using the hydraulic press, I took the old bearing out and pressed the new one in.
Once I figured out how the tensioner actually worked, I lubed that up as well.
Meanwhile, Dave got in there and cleaned up the pulleys. And the cold-side charge pipes.
Again, I failed to remember the specific instructions, so I got the belt on a tooth off. But I’ll fix that later on. In the meantime, Tim was working on draining the fuel. He was thinking that getting the fuel pump to do the work would be easiest, so we hooked up a battery and tried to get the fuel pump to run. Nothing. He tried connecting 12V directly to the fuel pump and still nothing. It looks like a new fuel pump will need to be sourced.