Timing belt removal, on Toyota Starlet EP91

Disclaimer!
This is not recommended for beginners! Don´t do it if you don´t have the knowledge, OK?! DON'T BLAIM ME if you fail. Doing it wrong can damage your engine.. In this post I just tell you what I did OK?

Enough of disclaimer, everyone has to take their own responsible for their life and the choices they do..

Ok, lets get started!

First! Jack up the car, Remove front right wheel.

Then remove splashguard under the car, the right one, 4 bolts on my car and clip holding it together with the left splash guard.

I suggest you start with the crankshaft pulley, if you can get that one off is the main question. This how I did it.

Remove the 19 mm crank pulley bolt.

If you are mad enough to try the startengine method....

Remove the 15A EFI fuse before cranking, I missed this so the engine started. But fortunatly I stopped it before anything bad happend...Phew. Dont miss this.. Be careful and dont do it if you dont know how. Se pictures down below for how I did it.

Alternator Belt /  Drive belt. 
Loosen Pivot bolt and then loosen adjusting bolt and move the alternator so you can slide /get the alternator/ drive belt of.

Picture from: http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/forums/showthread.php?94745-how-to-change-fan-belt-on-starlet-na

Suggest you mark up the adjusting bolt and feel the tension of the belt so you can get it back the same when finished.

This tool can help remove crankshaft pulley. Credit to Peter Finn! Is called Takjärn in Sweden.

27.45 in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36VfojkWhm8

Date of the job, 2015-07-20, 76069 km, and 18 year old car, time to change the belt. Every 6 year or 90000 km whichever comes first.

After removing the wheel and splash-guard: First thing, loosen this 19 mm bolt. My first approach was too try to hold the crankshaft pulley with M8 screws and a bar, but had a hard time drilling trough the bar.. so...

I decided to go with the start-engine and turn the ignition key a short moment method. It felt like high risk but I did try it and was successful. I put the socket wrench against the frame, as you can see in the picture.

Next I loosen the Alternator Pivot bolt and the adjuster bolt so I could remove the drivebelt.

Got the crankshaft pulley of easy, thanks for that! It wasn´t stuck. YES! This was the biggest challenge to get of, and it went like a breeze.

4E-FE engine. Here you have the crankshaft pulley and drivebelt removed. Time to remove the two plastic cover.

Here I have removed the upper cover. 4 screw of 10 mm bolts if I remember correctly.

The lower cover had 3 bolts, 10 mm socket wrench. Here it just coming of.

Toyota Starlet, 4efe: Now the cambelt is fully visible.

Checking out the alignment of the original belt.

View, from the bottom of the engine. Crankshaft teeth at the lowest point.

Tried to but the crankshaft pulley back so I could rotate the engine, clockwise. But was to heave, had to put the wheel back on and put the gear in 4th gear, then It was pretty easy to turn the engine around by hand.

Tensioner pulley with spring, I put some marks here, thought it might be useful, but really wasn't. This one has to be moved. To get the cam belt of, the tensioner wheel has to be moved as far left as possible. The spring will be longer. And then tighten the bolt, (12 mm)

Clean everything that was dirty, here the Idle pulley.

Checking TDC, top dead center. on the cam. The 4E and the little hole must align. So must also the crankshaft teeth / cogwheel.

I decided to go for a Gates Powergrip cam belt.

Checking that the crankshaft mart is where it should be according to TDC. Last picture before changing the belt.

I got the belt of, bit by bit. And then check the tensioner bearing and idle pulley bearing. Felt good and solid. Don´t have to change them.

Here the new belt has been mounted. Took a while to get the new cam belt on, it was pretty tight even though I´ve moved the tensioner pulley. But finally got it on and then turn the camshaft cogwheel 2 whole turns and checked if the marks lined up as they should. When I was sure they were correctly installed I tried starting the engine and it the sound was OK. YES! I then re-assembled everything in reverse order.

Finally I put this little sticker that was in the Gates cardbord case. Noting the km and date so that next owner has a clue of the status of the cam belt. The least I could do..

Another guide of how to do it:
http://www.ukstarletowners.com/topic/3169-how-to-change-a-cambelt-ep91

Tercel video, same principle as the Toyota Starlet, even though not the same engine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf93v-d3Kdc

I´ve done a video, 2 part series, check it out!

Part1 /2

Part 2/2


The car is now running fine and everything is like it should! YES!

Bye! :-)