Timing Belt- wrap up...

Sorry for the delay. ...

Here's the rest of the pictures I snapped.

Not much more detail than I left you with.

This blog tool, makes a write up like this very time consuming and difficult. I found that changing the belt was easier than trying to get the pic's lined up right for this blog.

Anywas...lets get down to brass tax. One picture shows how used the driver tool, along with a hex key to break the 3 water pump bolts free. It was easy.

Since I wasnt replacing the water pump, just the gasket. I was able to cheat a little bit here...

The water pump wont come all the way out.

There is another bolt-on plastic cover that is in the way. To completely remove it requires the cam sprockets to be removed....way to much work for me.

So I cheated by simply removing the lower bolt(s) as shown in one of the pics.

This let me pry the cover back just enough to get the water pump away from the engine, and let me pry the old O-ring gasket off and put the new one on. This was a bit of a pain.

Get ready to catch a bit of coolant. and scratch your arm up finagling with the plastic cover that you'll have to be bending out of your way. Mine didn't break.

With that done, I re-intalled the water-pump with bolts on loose.

I used normal sized vice grips and they were able to grip the waterpump as shown in the pictures and rotate it as needed.

At this time I replaced the tensioner and Idler pulleys. It was only a matter of unbolting the old ones and re-installing the new pieces.

Now time to slip the new belt back on. (With the white markings transferred to the new belt).

I made sure to triple check that they were correct.

Slippling the new belt on was no easy feat. Because the sprockets move after the old belt comes off.

The timing belt. When Mined lined up initially there was a big 'U' dip inbetween both cam sprockets, and not enough belt slack left over to slip over the bottom cog correctly.

I had to use: 1. the help of a friend. 2. Start with the belt only halfway over the cam sprockets. holding the belt to the sprocket with my palm, turning one sprocket to remove as much of the 'U' dip as I could.

Turning the crank back a bit so that the belt tooth lined up with the correct marked groove in crank pulley.

Eventually I had everything on and correctly lined up.

Now it was time for belt tension.

I found this to be quite confusing. You could twist the water pump and spike the tensioner up into the correct zone...( you'll see a pointer on the spring loaded tensioner that moves and is supposed to line up with a mark also on the tensioner)

But as the belt would move , the tension would release.

This was even more evident as we removed the sparkplugs, relieving compression on the engine.

A tool end was inserted into one of the cam sprockets by me, to stop them from moving as I rotated the water pump for the adjustment. The tension was set as close to the mark as I could get it. And I left it like that.

I used a regular sized pair of vice grips from Lowes and they fit just fine. With tension set and the water pump bolts snugged back up it was all just a matter of reversing removal procedures.

The crank pulley bolt gave me some hassles, trying to turn the engine as I was trying to get it torqued down.

With the car in gear and the brakes appled (see pic in first Post using a bar to apply the brake pedal) I was able to get some torque on the bolt. I'm not sure if it was exactly as the manual prescribes (30 degree turn ect) but it hasn't come loose in 10k miles of driving.

Everything else went back on as it was removed.

My new accessory belt was a bit confusing to get back on. I had to review a pic of the aveo engine, outside a chassis, to get it right.

It might help to draw an outline of the thing before removing it, in those first steps.

I buttoned everything back up...Replaced my plugs and wires, and did an oil change.

She started back up as if nothing happened, and ran crisp and clean like the day I bought it.

I Hope yours goes as well as mine did! I hope this post was easy to read and understand as well as informative!

Best of luck with your Aveo!