Z16XER cambelt replacement

There’s nothing like picking a good day to do a job…

This engine bay looks untouched since it left the factory… With cambelt change intervals at 100k miles / 10 years, perhaps all it has seen is a yearly oil change, plus an occasional brake fluid and coolant change.

New GM cambelt kit, about £80 including postage from Autovaux, hardly any point skimping here.

Old belt in position, the locking kit works well and I have to say if I ever do this job again, it will be much quicker with the familiarity I now have with it.  The two cam sprockets are easy enough to align, what I found most fiddly was inserting the crank locking tool (done by removing a nut and bolt from the front of the gearbox mount).

Old belt removed, with tensioner and idle roller.  The tensioner bearing was as new, still slightly stiff with grease and I would have happily refitted it if I hadn’t just bought a new one.  The idle roller bearing had leaked it’s grease out and was much freer running, but not noisy, so I could have taken Brian’s approach of pulling a dust seal out and re-packing with grease.

Old belt kit is all genuine GM, interestingly there was no obvious wear or ageing beyond a browny dust that might well be rust that had formed on the pulleys while stored and got worn off while running again.

A little shiny, but in good condition otherwise, no cracking on either side. Not bad for a 11 year old belt.

And for the maintenance record, here’s the current mileage.

Next job will be to replace all the brake discs and pads, then to give the whole car a good clean – I simply haven’t touched the inside since buying it and it is, err… dirrrrty. 😉