Friday, April 13, 2012

Knowing Your Timing Belt

By Fred Gagnon


Perhaps you are mislead with the function of your Saab belts. Why not consider reading this article, to have the have an understanding of on one of those belts? - The timing belts.

Timing Belts are stiffened plastic bands or at times chains utilized to proportion the switchings of the crankshafts and camshafts in internal combustion engines. In the inner part of some timing belts are teeth that will match the gears of a specific engine design. Classic vehicles have timing belts utilized only to synchronize camshafts and crankshafts. However, with today's modern engines, they're also often accustomed to drive the water pumps.

The timing belts have to maintain the valves and the pistons working in a detailed order. At the proper time, each valve and piston combination must press down on the individual cams on a camshaft. It is just like riding a bicycle, where the pedal must get to the top before you could push it back down. Your foot will either fall through or simply break the pedal quickly if you attempted to push the pedal too early. Timing belts work to prevent the pressing of the pistons and the valves on the camshaft before it has reached a complete cycle.

Timing belts have a life-span with a minimum of 60,000 miles, but many of the modern designs can last the entire life of the engine. They must be replaced instead with respect to the manufacturer's suggestions.

If the timing belt does not work out completely, the engine will just grind to a halt and the vehicle will fully not work. The valves and pistons can drive themselves into the camshaft, thereby making them bend and brake. A little or no warning is executed by a failing timing belt so it is prudent that a timely timing belt replacement be succesfully done.

The professionals are in charge of replacing them as a great deal of peripheral parts such as the distributor and might possibly be the water pump must be taken away for it to become readily accessible. New timing belts need to exactly match the old ones. The vehicle with broken timing belts will have to be pulled into the shop. And when the timing belt has been changed, the mechanic should synchronize the camshaft and the crankshaft with a special type of strobe light. Fixing the broken timing belt could take a number of hours, but it's all worth the expense.

The mechanic may also advise that the water pump be changed together with the timing belt. You should not be concerned because it will be well worth it in the long term. For the reason that more or less all the work is performed to replace the water pump when the timing belt is being changed; meaning it will not mandate any extra labor compared to repeating all that work and the mechanic would then cost again for the labor if the water pump should fail at a later time.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment