Shop Time w/T.W. Friends

Seems the old Chrysler 2.2/2.5 had a mount on the front that had to be fiddled with to change the belts, or maybe just the timing belt -- it was a lot of years ago.

 

They never learned on vehicles with those engines. We had a 2008 Chevy Equinox with the 3400. Same stupid ass belt design with the motor mount right in the middle of it. Dumped it when it started to consume oil and coolant as much as gas...

To do the timing belt on my '95 Eagle with the Chrysler 2.0L DOHC 4 banger takes an act of a magician to get in there. Lining the timing marks up is easy, just getting to it though, holy-oh-fk... 1st and 2nd Gen Neon's were the same way, but they did share the engine bay design.

 

Never took the mount off
A jack stand and you could slip it through.

 

Remember the weighted wrench tension tool?

 

Wut

 

You put that gadget on the timing belt tensioner, the length of the arm and the weight set the correct tension on the belt, then you tightened the bolt locking it in place.

 

The GM Quad 4 engine in my Olds Achieva..water pump was in the back of the engine. Yup.

 

Morning all have a great day

 

Oh yea.
Two different weight configs.
At one point I was using a adjustable wrench. (I can’t remember the length.)
Because the tool disappeared .
When we did replacements using that tool we would get belt slap after a year or so
because they would stretch so much.
So I modified the tightening procedure and I taught everyone else how I did it.
MEMORIES..LOL

On Edit.
I use to love pulling the shroud and seeing how badly cracked the belt was.
Some you would think they couldn’t do their job.
One thing I miss is back then they were non interference engines so it wasn’t a motor job if the belt broke.

 

Ahhhh yes, a picture you could see and understand..

 

"they were non interference engines"

That was great -- the belt breaks and you coast to stop, replace it and on your way.
I seem to remember the belt being $28 (?) from Chrysler, it wasn't expensive even to a cheap guy like me.

Carburetors not included those 4 banger Chrysler cars were so easy to service - 4 plugs, oil filter and distributor all facing you when you opened the hood. Thinking now, I haven't seen an Omni/Horizon/Aries/Reliant/024/2.2 Charger on the road in years.

Easy service aside: I had an 87 Horizon and an 87 Olds Delta 88 - at 250,000 miles the Oldsmobile was a better car than the Horizon was brand new. You do get what you pay for, the Horizon was $7K, the Olds $21K.

That Olds was a heck of a car -- quiet, quick, thrifty, comfortable, went like a train in the snow. It did everything effortlessly. I quit driving it at 280K when the fuel lines started leaking, should have fixed it, it was still a tight reliable car. One of my best ever.

 

Done with a pair of 30MM custom stainless wrenches for a customer, 1/2” thick

 

They look like industrial versions of tuning forks.

 

Now that brings back memories. That was exactly my first car...

 

Mine was the same car in Gray with aluminum wheels. Had the same luggage rack too. The air conditioner could make the car uncomfortably cold on the hottest days. 29-30 mpg on the highway every day. Great car.

 

Time to take some precision measurements with not so precise calipers... this should be fun!

 

Mine didn't originally have the luggage rack (base model), I managed to snag one of those off a car in the junkyard (this was 2006 so there was still a couple left in junkyards). Yea as a 16 year old kid I was wanting a luggage rack on my car We could never get the AC going, so we gave up on that. Bought the car from my mothers boss in Maryland. Come to find out when we registered it in PA it was totaled many years ago in that state, fixed and titled in Maryland to hide it. Guess back then it was easy. What a PITA it was to get a title for that thing... The passenger door was a different color on the inside and the windshield had a habit of leaking on that side. We figured it took a hard hit in that area.

Sold it and then bought a 2002 Dodge Neon, that was a mistake

 

Interesting !

 

I'm also taking measurements off of a used "bad" part since we don't have any new ones. So there's a tiny bit of fudge factor...