mmatheny

The permatex doesn't harden either. Yeah, owner was a Dr. at that! Wouldn't want him working on me! Course, the parts at Lexus were probably $500!

mmatheny

Well, my thought-was-my-buddy ******* mechanic won't tackle the job - So I'm gonna show him I'm a man and do it. Thanx for all the encouragement cool! I might be posting questions, but I believe it should be a straight up job. What needs to come loose/out to get to all the bolts on the cover and ease of access? Any foresight tips!?? I'm great at hindsight tips!

llcoolpass

mmatheny, there is no way I'm telling you how to do the timing belt job ... I mean, just follow the FSM. And remember your engine is interference [the piston and valves hit each other if the camshaft is not carefully turned.... but it shouldn't be a problem if you understand what you're doing. since you're JUST doing the timing belt + water pump, correct me if I'm wrong, then you will need to first be able to knock the crank bolt lose. youll need a breaker bar and strong 6 pt socket...and you will rest the bar on the ground pointing fwd of the car ... in other words, the engine crank, from the perspective that you are looking at it directly [from the pass side] turns clockwise. just email me if you got an emergency question. i will do my best to help if I it's needed. I would find a back up person ,someone with your version of the 1mz-fe to contact as well, who is expert. the fsm, followed to a T on the timing belt job is usually good enough. but my tip for the starter blips to break out the bolt, and to do that with the fuel system having been first disabled, is one goodie that the fsm will leave out.

umm... you will need a pry bar to tension the accesspru belts when done.... unless the design has changed for the 1mz-fe with vvt [i would need to go check, but you can too]...
and you will need a 10mm socket, 14 mm socket, and possible a 12 [i cant remembner] for the idle pulley. and that one need to be extension or long.

do you plan on torque to spec the bolts for the idlers and so on? the crank, I'm not sure how important it is to torque that to 180 ft lbs or w/e the spec is. my torque wrench can't do that high. and if you do go high on a TW that happens to only go up to what youre torqueing at, it tends to make it go out of spec. I just guesstimate [secret mechanical magical ability] using a long breaker bar. Since your car is an automatic, you will need a tool to stop it [the engine] from turning when you torque it. or some other innovate way. some people have gotten it ok tight, then tightened good later by asking a shop to hammer it a second or two with their air gun, if they didn't already own an air gun themselves.
on my car, i just put it in frth and use the wheels-transmission-engine and block the wheels from turning to counter my twisting.

if you need to squeeze the piston back in on the hydraulic tensioner, i can show you how I done dood it

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i7...9/cb68e555.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i7...9/21527887.jpg

mmatheny

My FSM shows 159 ft/lbs for the crankshaft pully. Any idea what size that bolt is? Do I thread lock that bolt and the idler bolts when I put them back in? Also, do I need to remove the rear spark plugs, or can I get it to TDC and hold it there with the tool you provided the link to by only removing the front plugs? Thanx LLCOOLPASS <- (there, is that better?)

mmatheny

Can I reuse the gaskets behind No. 3 Timing Belt Cover?

llcoolpass

the socket I think I used is 19mm , but it could be 21 [common sizes]. may be different for 1mzfe versus my 3vz-fe ... so hopefully, someone who remembers can chime in for you [in any case, i can tell you that you will need half inch drive socket and half inch drive breaker bar or higher]

like i said you can reuse the cover gasket but if there's something reallly wrong with it or it got all sopped and swollen with oil and doesn't seal well, then obvously you might change it so that it keeps the timing belt sealed off and so on

dont put any high torque type of thread locker on the crank bolt, but do put it on the idler pulley bolt. tip, to remove the crank pullley if it's hard, you need to rent or buy the standard crank pulley removal kit in a car parts store or online, but to avoid that in the future, carefully lightly lube with grease the interface and sand it lightly if realllly rusty with fine sandpaper in the rusty spots to make later removal piece of cake. i did that and when i removed my crank pulley a year later, i didn't need the tool [so awesome]. like i said, easy on the grease, or will get on the timing belt a little bit [you will see what I mean when you are in there]

you don't have to remove the plugs, but technically you should, but nkowing how hard to remove the rear ones unless you're willing to do that, then just take it easy and you should be fine. remember, at TDC on teh crank, the pulleys will stay put with the belt removed assuming their at their index points as they would be if your timing belt was properly working [assuming, like , it didn't break and that being the cause of the timing belt job]. then, you can remove the rear bank [RH] , the only one you have to remove for a timing belt job, according to my 3vz-fe procedure, is the RH pulley by using the SST [the tool] and the 17mm tool of choice you put on the bolt, and find a way to losen without chancing that the pulley will do a turny on you. this is the risky hard part of the job on the interference engine. think this part through and make sure you know what you're to do to make sure you dont end up cranking on teh cam, having it spin while you press hard and thereby keep pushing hard [accidentally] when the valve is possibly touching the piston and thus bending them. remember that max torque as the tools at an angle like this, that way you can break the bolt loose more easily. i would check that you even replace the cam sproket on the 1mz-fe interference engines' design for the Timing belt procedure.
one back up might be to put bolts through the timing cover holes to keep the sproket in place.

if I didn't make sense to you at some point let us know

mmatheny

Thanx - I might just buy that gasket set and replace it anyway while I'm in there! Do I need to do the "crank" trick to break the bolt loose (or does it just depend - since the engine was overhauled 35k ago, I might be able to break it loose by hand!)? What about the rear plugs question?

llcoolpass

which bolt? in anycase, yes, I would use the starter blip trick to break loose the crank AND cam bolt while the timing belt is still on. it's the best way to go. just make sure your tool is safe and not going anywhere and has something good to rest on when doing the cam bolt.... the crank same thing, but make sure its on the bolt head nice and square and resting on the ground.

and the rear plugs I thought I answered you...

on the cam bolt, perhaps you can use the breaker bar and 17mm x 1/2" or whatever your break bar drive is and put it against the ground or against the firewall [with a block of wood betwixt] or something along those lines

mmatheny

Ok - you're right on the plug question!

llcoolpass

actually one more way to do it, while crank is still good and tight, put the breaker bar on the crank bolt [it's still tight presumably] and then just use your brute force to get the cam bolt off by yourself with no starter bliping

there, plenty of ways to do it easy

if you cant tell yes the cam bolt in the rear is hard to get loosened

mtnrocker

The idler pulley on my car has like a plate or something that looks like it is covering the bolt I would need to get to, to remove the pulley. How did you guys get this off??