Thread: 300 timing belt

Its not easy getting a good feel for it even with the correct sized tool. I doubt my previous attempts were very accurate. But I know someone who miss-read the torque wrench and ended up tensioned to 110Nm. He traveled 300km before it broke and bent the values.

Hi The torque was changed to 11nms for when these had timing belt wear issues. when you strip and have a look at the idler and tensioner pulley and you think they require changing you can get a kit which comes with the belt/gasket tensior and idler pully and crank pully which is buying cheaper than seperatly. as for the torque wrench the dail type they recommend you use i have only seen on a snap on truck, i have used a different type of wrench which was not a breaker type wrench it had a seperat rod that bent when you applied torque with a scale in a semicircle pattern by the handle.

Not having the flash torque wrench, I just used a spring scale (fish weighing scale) to apply the correct torque.
Just measure the length of whatever you are using to apply the torque (socket or spanner etc) from the center of the bolt to the point where you attach the spring scale. Calculate the force required to get the appropriate torque (Torque/Length = Force), and pull the appropriate force on the scale.
Just make sure you keep the scale at 90* to the spanner/ratchet.

Steve

Originally Posted by steveG

Not having the flash torque wrench, I just used a spring scale (fish weighing scale) to apply the correct torque.
Just measure the length of whatever you are using to apply the torque (socket or spanner etc) from the center of the bolt to the point where you attach the spring scale. Calculate the force required to get the appropriate torque (Torque/Length = Force), and pull the appropriate force on the scale.
Just make sure you keep the scale at 90* to the spanner/ratchet.

Steve

Exactly. And 1kg of force equals 10 Newtons (actually 9.81). So on a lever 10cm (0.1 m) long 11Nm would be 11kg on your fish scale.

Originally Posted by steveG

Not having the flash torque wrench, I just used a spring scale (fish weighing scale) to apply the correct torque.
Just measure the length of whatever you are using to apply the torque (socket or spanner etc) from the center of the bolt to the point where you attach the spring scale. Calculate the force required to get the appropriate torque (Torque/Length = Force), and pull the appropriate force on the scale.
Just make sure you keep the scale at 90* to the spanner/ratchet.

Steve

As per Steve's method I used the same technique last time I changed the belt (50k ago) and had no issues, in fact its probably more accurate than most torque wrenches.
I used foot-pounds method and measured a t-bar and put a piece of tape at 1 foot mark & every pound on the fishing scale = 1 foot pound. Simple eh.

Thank you everyone for the help, the idea of using a scale is interesting, I may try that. As to the torque wrench the one discribed by indie2002uk, was the one I had in mind.

i did my '95 300TDi with a torque wrench like indie2002uk, converted N/M to Ft/LBs for the scale, worked really well.
it was my first time with a timing belt so took it slow and had the rave manual and also a haynes book as well, just finished the job a couple of weeks ago, getting prepared for RWC