Thread: Zeus gears anyone

Hi DD,
Ring a friend of mine Ken Wright 02 9939 6319 a Sydney Aluminium engineer, and he will turn you off for life. He and a number of other Zues Gear people were taking a class action against Yican P/L the Australian agent in Melbourne. Cost Ken $10,000 dollars (& more since in lawers costs) when the gears let go out in the desert somewhere, and that always will be a problem with this type of modifaction, no one but Zues or experts can fix and they are always out of reach when needed, especially when that is why you fit them eliminating belts breaking, I've done three one with disastrous results, the other two before they let go, all within 100,000km the first at 17,000km but all done by Rover under warranty.

Somewhere there is a website that has listed 40 or 50 known failures in Australia from a pair of guys that had them fitted to a 130 and a Disco leading up to a round world trip, and becuase they failed the trip I think still hasn't gone ahead, if I can find this site again will post for you.

On the other hand I do know of two other members of my club in Sydney that have had no problems with long kilometres after the change, and one chap did the job himself in a 110 Defender hardtop. They are very noisy but not inside mostly when at idle standing near the car, they clatter

I'd love to fit them myself but would not be game now.

The cost from memory is around $3000 I think, don't hold me to that, about the same cost if the belt breaks and ruins con rods, tappets and others things.

Hope this helps

I thought about it but it works out far cheaper buying the tools and learning how to change the timing belt yourself.

Even if the belt went "ping" in the bush, changing the belt and repairing the damage isn't a drama. Worst case, you'll have to replace some push rods and a couple of rockers which can all be done without removing the head.

I suspect that one of the reasons for past failures is the lack of lubrication in the timing case.

HTH

Mark.

Mr Dawg
I too dared to mention the Zeus product and was awash with information regarding the cons, I don't believe there was anything positive. The conclusion from my post was ' 3 cheers for the rubber band'

I haven't mastered the art of linking articles but my post is on page 9 of technical chatter, the heading is evident. There is a host of information and links on the various replies. The site 'number one' mentioned is below;


www.rovingtheglobe.com

john

Thankyou for your valued input gents...looks like I'll stick with the lacky band.. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif[/img]

Just out of interest, what is the replacement interval for the Tdi timing belt? I had this type of toothed belt on several cars in the past, and advice was always to change at 60,000K's.

In the case of the Volvo 240 it was an easy DIY job.

Cheers,

Lionel

Originally posted by Lionel
Just out of interest, what is the replacement interval for the Tdi timing belt? I had this type of toothed belt on several cars in the past, and advice was always to change at 60,000K's.

In the case of the Volvo 240 it was an easy DIY job.

Cheers,

Lionel

60k will be fine, 100k or 5/6 yrs is what's recommended.

Mark.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'>
60k will be fine, 100k or 5/6 yrs is what's recommended.
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If people have had them break under 100K, it might be better to change them at 60 to 80K.

Cheers,

Lionel

Don't forget that there's a number of factors involved.... Those vehicles may have been under 100k but how old was the belt? Were they setup to the revised settings from LandRover to prevent premature failure?

Also, what conditions were these belts subjected to? I know of a couple of vehicles that had snapped 3x belts with only 30k on the clock each.... Mind you, they spend most of their life as off-road instruction vehicles and each time the casing was opened it was full of mud!

Anyway... It's your truck, change it how ever often you want. 8) I'm happy with 100k / 5 yr intervals on mine.

Mark.