After my epic run yesterday I was up at 3 and soon on my way down to Alasdair's to do the cambelt and water pump...
With the garage wood-burner lit, I was on it..
I was delighted to see the cam covers were the old-style clipped ones... They came off in no time at all
The crank bolt and pulley came off ever so easily with just a bit of rattle-gunning
Then it all got a bit 'fun'. In starting to remove the old cambelt, after pinning up the cam and pump and marking the crank, I found the belt tensioner would not retract due to the spring-loaded piston being seized solid in its bore!
I removed the engine mount and then we could set about both freeing it and releasing the tensioner..
Then I noticed someone else had been here before, they had hammered the tensioner jockey wheel to give a bit of clearance to free the belt when it was changed previously... Terrible stuff
Here's the marks on the jockey wheel, happily not bad enough to render it unserviceable...
To free off the piston we had to drill a hole in the back of its bore so it could be punched out...
The extent of the corrosion!
With a bit of cleaning, it freed up fine
Speaking of corrosion, this was the water pump
And the engine block behind it... No wonder the old coolant looked a bit rusty!
The old pump appears to have been leaking too...
The old water pump gasket was well stuck and took ages to cleanly remove...
With the new water pump fitted and the tensioner reassembled, which was a bit of 'fun' without the special piston retractor tool, the new cambelt went on no problem at all...
Then we found the new water pump was the later type with the side-skirt on it. A bit of subtle modification was needed to the pump with a small grinder to make the cam covers fit!
Yet another difference in the very early Xantias, there really is quite a few, mostly found out the hard way
All came good and after refitting and tensioning the auxiliary belt, we called it a day..
Tomorrow, fill with coolant, make sure all is happy and then..... MoT
It's been a good day and hugely enjoyed
