Thread: timing belt calendar life

Shelf life of cam belts??? ...........and other critical things containing rubber.

Elastomeric components have a shelf life, be it a tyre or an "o" ring. All the reputable name brands will have a DoM branded on somewhere. The shelf life can be extended by "sealing" the component in and, climate and light controlled storage. (Shelf life of compounds will have been statisticlly determined and then adjusted a couple of standard deviations to the left, but one doen't really want to play russian roulette with the Mean.)

The real problem is the gradual evaporation over time of the volatiles that keep the rubber soft and flexible. At the extreme end - have a good sniff next time you visit local tyre dealer. Is main reason tyres get hard and less grippy over time. Hence remove and replace after about 5 years.

Once apon a time when I wore a uniform, Defence had an elastomeric storage facility for all 3 services. Probably still exists. Could double storage life. However, as I recall individual items of stock by P/N would be removed periodically and lab tested.

Cheers

RF

Originally Posted by 67hardtop

Belt will prob be ok if kept away from UV light.

It would be better out of UV light,but i had a heap of belts in the shed,A,B,spa,spz section,many around ten years old.

Most of them had perished and i had to throw them away.

The majority of them were gates red label,so not rubbish belts,or cheap chinese stuff.

Sure timing belts are probably better quality,but its something to be mindful of.

As someone pointed out, sealing rubber parts extends their shelf life.
Never seen a 'sealed bag' timing belt, but many rubber components come in sealed packages(like bearing seals, o-rings, etc).
The assumption is that they're churned over regularly and not kept for too long.

My understanding is that not only UV that damages rubber, but the tiny traces of ozone kills them .. causes cracks with are the major issue, especially with stressed rubber components like timing belt, fanbelts, tyres, etc.
Obviously Ozone is in nanoscopic amounts down here at ground level, but even those small amounts does a lot of damage over time.