Thread: 300Tdi Timing belt, What went wrong.... EVERYTHING

Originally Posted by 100I

Someone told me about wiping dishwashing liquid on alloy, then you heat the alloy till the soap browns and it's ready to eat.. no no wait a minute..
I remember now,, a 4x4 is born is where I saw it, they were preparing the alloy panels for some reshaping. Perhaps this technique would show safe heat applied to cast alloy as well?

When the soap goes black, aluminium alloys will be annealed i.e very soft and able to be worked. Leaving annealed aluminium for 24 hours will age-harden it. The temp. of the metal when the soap browns, or blacks will be about 400 to 500 deg C, which is way too hot for this operation. Black soap is very close to the melting point of the alloy.

As someone else said water boiling on the surface should be adequate i.e. about 100 deg C,

cheers Chazza

Will do.....

I got another cover today and drilled the housing and bearing to feed it oil.... going to try that before i replace the bearing....

Steve

Originally Posted by rick130

Use just enough heat so spit or water just starts to spit/pop.

thats the temp you want.... nothing more....

My 300Tdi Defender is also Loctite Central. I think that the main Perth LR agents are Loctite main dealers as well. I pay the stiff BOC annual rental on oxy-acetylene gas bottles just to keep the Landie fleet going. All the bearing places (e.g. Consolidated Bearings) stock the small ball race used throughout the front end for about $4 each. One of those DIY hydraulic presses is good value. The previous owner threw the one that I have away 'cos it had a hydraulic leak. It turned out to be a loose oil filler cap on the jack. Watch the Bulk Collections!

Pix of the Crank holding tool....

Clarkie, I s'pose now isn't a good time to tell you that Mal (Maxi Drive) makes a 300Tdi crank holding tool for a nominal sum. When I last looked in the catalogue it was cheaper than the steel cost to make mine.......

Originally Posted by rick130

Clarkie, I s'pose now isn't a good time to tell you that Mal (Maxi Drive) makes a 300Tdi crank holding tool for a nominal sum. When I last looked in the catalogue it was cheaper than the steel cost to make mine.......

How much???

Thought I would add onto this thread which is linked in the "Good Oil" section rather than starting a new one. Some small lessons and a few more questions!

Today I got to my timing belt...

(1) A tip for draining the radiator - if you have any spare radiator hoses around, they make for great leads to buckets! I decided I'd change all my radiator hoses while I had them all disconnected anyway, so using the spare hoses made draining the radiator a lot less messy. Also, I completely took the radiator out, and although I understand it's not 100% necessary, I'm glad I did. So much easier to work in the area now and if you're just a random guy pulling his Landy apart like me - I highly recommend it.

(2) For me the 27mm crank bolt came off easy using a 6 point socket on a 1/2" 750mm long breaker bar with the vehicle handbrake on and my girlfriend standing on the foot brake.

I needed a puller to get off both the crank pulley and crank belt gear. I would not have managed without a puller. I used one that cost $23 on ebay and some extra bolts to fit the pulley and gear threads.
Bolts sizes for puller:
Crank pulley = M8
Crank belt gear = M5 (Need to be longer than 50mm)

Cheap puller - ebay



(3) What I found was a badly worn belt, with belt dust EVERYWHERE and some oil residue.




Question - Does oil residue mean I need a new seal on the crank shaft? I didn't buy one of those, and it's Easter long weekend!

Tip - buy the oil seal anyway. It's not in the timing belt kit and so far is the only extra part I've needed that's not in the kit.

(4) Question - How hard should it be to rotate the radiator fan when holding the nut in the middle? I can spin it OK and it feels smooth, but I expected it to freely spin - like if you spin a bike wheel...