First of all, I do not mean to knock Mitsubishi or it's products. Just venting frustration. I agree to put a T-belt and waterpump on my nephews 1998 Eclipse. 420a engine. Mind you, I am not a regular T-belt installer. Maybe once or twice a year. But I am told it is easy. Back to my story. We break out the service manual I forced my nephew to buy. The manual goes into explicit detail on how to do this. If the engine was on a stand. So we dive in and I reach the point where the engine mount bracket bolts hit the frame rail. Look! There is a plastic plug in the frame rail. Shame that hole doesn't line up with ANY of the bolts... So I call a Mitsu guy I know. His advice? "Pull the right side engine mount and let the engine hang. It's not fragile. You won't break anything." Oh really? So I tried that. Then pulled the two front bolts from the subframe and loosened the rears. Finally the engine dropped far enough to get the lowest of the three bracket bolts out. And I jack the heck out of the engine to get the two upper bracket bolts and the bracket out.
I also find that the engine has to hang to get the crank pulley off. No clearance while the engine is fully in the car. What a mother to get that off. But, every car has it's own idiosyncrasies. If you work on them regularly you know about them. No big deal I guess. BTW, I survived the car and the car survived me so all is good... And now I know some of that car's secrets.... Muh, ha, ha, ha....
Dont blame Mitsu for the 420A, thats a Chrysler motor. Blame the bean counters for that one. Doing a timing belt on an Eclipse with a proper 4G63 is worlds easier.
93gsxturbo wrote:
Dont blame Mitsu for the 420A, thats a Chrysler motor. Blame the bean counters for that one. Doing a timing belt on an Eclipse with a proper 4G63 is worlds easier.
I'm glad to hear that. I have to do my friend's t belt & crank sprocket & balancer because someone else f'ed up and broke a lot of stuff when he didn't do the t belt correctly last time.
yea... I remember doing the timing belt on my old Hyundai Excel. (basically the same as the Mitsu Preces)) and there was a teeny tiny hole in the fenderwell to undo the crank bolt.. it lined right up. What you are dealing with is a "foreign" engine that was forced into a mitsu that was already in production
Festiva was similar. Back off the front mount bolts and the engine would drop enough to get the crank bolt off through the wheel well. The bolts didn't have to come out all the way though.
Yes, not only is it a total pain in the ass, but since it's a Chrysler engine in a Mitsubishi body, you use nearly every socket on the rail.
16vCorey wrote:
Yes, not only is it a total pain in the ass, but since it's a Chrysler engine in a Mitsubishi body, you use nearly every socket on the rail.
QFT. And then when you swap in a SBC, you can break out all the SAE sockets on the rail too. 
corytate wrote:
93gsxturbo wrote:
Dont blame Mitsu for the 420A, thats a Chrysler motor. Blame the bean counters for that one. Doing a timing belt on an Eclipse with a proper 4G63 is worlds easier.
I'm glad to hear that. I have to do my friend's t belt & crank sprocket & balancer because someone else f'ed up and broke a lot of stuff when he didn't do the t belt correctly last time.
Don't celebrate yet. I had enough problems keeping the cams from jumping a half tooth with my 4g63 on a stand. There's a tool to 'lock' the cams together that helped tremendously and you'll need an inch/lb torque wrench to properly set the tensioner. Make sure you rotate the engine 7 turns (if I remember correctly) and check the timing marks again to make sure everything still lines up or you'll have to start from scratch again. Oh yeah, don't forget to put the pin in the grenade (hydraulic tensioner) before taking the old belt off or you'll be in for a long night.
^ They recompress easy enough in a vice. Im fairly sure 420a have holes in the cams like the actual Chrysler version of this engine. Pull the valve cover and you can use 2 3/8s bolts and a length of plate to make a cam locking fixture.
Vigo
SuperDork
9/15/12 7:52 a.m.
Yeah, the 420a timing belt is kind of annoying. That upper most bolt in the engine mount bracket is the most annoying part of the entire deal, though. And luckily it's a lot longer than it needs to be so once you replace it with one that's a bit shorter, you never have that problem again. Or just do like i found in the last eclipse i took apart... leave it out!
Honestly, LOTS of timing belts are not easy. I think you would have posted basically the same post if you tried almost any timing belt on a transverse fwd.
Vigo wrote:
Honestly, LOTS of timing belts are not easy. I think you would have posted basically the same post if you tried almost any timing belt on a transverse fwd.
No kidding. You could have substituted 420A and Eclipse with Swift GT and G13. You have to do exactly the same stuff.
Try doing a water pump on a Quad 4. I didn't find it difficult, but everybody else does.
I once helped a friend put a timing belt on a DSM...never again!
This is why all the work on the 4g in my bud's gs-t will begin with pulling the engine and trans out. Gotta get every edge you can find with these stupid transverse engines=]
Do a PT cruiser belt, then you can complain.
KATYB
HalfDork
9/16/12 7:29 a.m.
do a ptcruiser or a timing belt on a 3000gt then complain. untill then u havent dealt with a pita fwd car.
is a new beetle 2.0 on par with the cruiser? I know I had a grand old time on the wife's. 
Vigo
SuperDork
9/16/12 9:30 a.m.
Many a 3kgt has been posted for sale with bent valves AFTER someone tried to do a timing belt as preventative maintenance on a perfectly good car. Its the only i car i know of where that is true.
On a related note, the kia/hyundai 3.5 is similarly annoying.
