Miata timing belt

A pair of crescent wrenches with a vice grip wrench. No big deal. Though certain tools made specifically for the job make it super easy. And Keith speaks the truth. Eyeballing the timing marks isn't hard if stuff slips.

Before we came up with the tool, I just put a single wrench on the intake cam and held it in place while I put the belt on. There's a school of thought that if the intake cam moves, all is lost and you'll never figure it out again. No. You don't need to clamp it in place, just put it in place when you install the belt.

Or use the ninja tool.

Keith Tanner wrote: Had a car dragged into a shop years ago. The belt looked just great other than the fact that it was broken. It popped when the owner was pulling away from a stop sign in traffic. The belt in question was 12 years old at the time and had 80k on it. So, yeah. It won't wreck the motor, but it'll screw up your day. Change it. All the online guides make it sound like it's a big deal to do. It's not. Just keep in mind that the intake cam will want to jump over a tooth (luckily, someone makes a useful tool for this) and you'll be fine. You can easily eyeball the location of the marks on the cam gears once the tension is set and tell if it's timed correctly. Lots of goofing around with cutting belts in half, counting teeth, etc. Just remember that most online guides were written by an amateur who just finished doing the job for the first time.

Why does this speak volumes to me? Oh, I don't know, maybe because my car has 80K on it? Hmmm.

I shall go look at said tool (why do I feel like I may be spending some time and money with Flyin' Miata?); right tool for the right job, etc... and as a noob doing it the first time I get the feeling I might be well served by picking up a couple things for the job.

Thought I'd update this one too - as I was poking around the engine bay this weekend to change a squeaking belt and replace the other for good measure, I noticed a little placard on the firewall. Turns out the belt was changed at 54K or 59K miles. Bully for me.

Couldn't un-stick the alternator bolt to change that one though; while it's amazingly clean underneath for a Nebraska car (minor surface rust at seams only), occasionally it's got a bolt salt/rust-welded on. Couldn't break it even after a few shots with PB Blaster (which worked wonders on exhaust flange bolts a couple weeks back...). So I left that one for now.

Also turns out that what I believe was the air intake temp sensor (???) was popped in to the the "Short Ram" intake boot behind the MAP/MAF (whatever these cars use...) sensor. No goop sealing it, just pulling air behind the sensor. Fixed that issue, car runs a little better now.