Volvo 740 B230 Timing Belt Change: Photos!

Something freaking amazing came for me:

It's so-wonderful, isn't it?

I'm glad you find it as so-wonderful as I do.

What you're looking at is an ipdusa t5385 crankshaft pully holder. It's the magic wand of 4-cylinder Volvo timing belt replacement. I ordered it back in May, back when I was still single, imagining a future warm June summer day where I would change the timing belt while my (then predicted)wife brought me cold beer and cookies. Shortly after I place the order, I got email saying it was back-ordered until August. I adjusted my fantasies accordingly. That is until august came and an update from ipd noted that delivery would be in september.

So, I ended up changing the timing belt on a crisp autumn day while my (real) wife raked leaves and I was chilled by the wind.

The tool holds the crankshaft while you apply 165 ft-lbs using your favorite freaking huge wrench using that 24mm socket you bought to remove the obscenely large Volvo oil plug. This gets around numerous tricks suggested by others on the internet (stuffing rope into a cylinder, bracing the pulley with a fat screwdriver, using an impact wrench, or as my father would later suggest, putting it in 5th and bracing the rear wheels.). It makes the job something of a breeze. There are a lot of steps involved, but it's all easy, and you don't get covered in oil. It took about 4 hours, but I wasn't hurrying.

There is several great guides to doing this around the internet.

(http://www.stepbystepvolvo.com/)
(http://www.swedishbricks.net/)

I don't need to parrot how I did it. I did want to post a few pictures and discuss engine performance because that information is hard to find.

 The front of the engine with the upper timing belt cover removed and the mark on the camshaft gear visible and aligned with the mark on the back of the cover.

 Crankshaft pulley holder installed on the tensioner stud.

 The pulley removed, timing belt fully exposed. Note the nut left on the tensioner to keep it from getting free.

 Cam gear alignment close up photo.

 Tensioner and spring removed from the engine. There is a lot of force behind the spring! With the retaining pin removed, it expands about an inch beyond the end of the shaft. I put the new tensioner in a clamp (laterally, by clamping the cylindrical bearing) to keep it from scooting around, and then used body weight to compress the spring and shaft while i used the free hand to put the retaining pin back in.

The old timing belt looked good. I almost thought that it had been replaced before I got the car

The teeth weren't chipped and the ridges were all visible. When I removed it, I noticed that it was loose enough that one could have pulled it off the engine with little effort (e.g. without compressing the tensioner). The new belt, in contrast, required very careful treatment: the slack had to be ironed out and all the teeth worked into the gears. The old belt was clearly a smidge longer than the new one.

As long as I have owned the car (almost a year! Gasp!) it has hunted a little bit at idle (+/- 100 rpm, very noticeable on the needle, but probably would pass emissions), and the delivery of power has not been smooth, particularly when decelerating against the engine. With the new belt installed, this issue is now completely gone and the engine is very smooth. That small amount of slack was probably translating into timing variability.

Total cost of project: $80 ($30 for the belt and $50 for the tool).
Estimate from the shop: $700

Weekend laying on the cold hard ground while my dog sniffed my neither regions: priceless.