After taking a 250 mile trip to Blacksburg Virginia and back, my car was sounding a little exhausted. There was very loud rattling coming from the timing cover, so I decided to investigate. I whipped out the timing chain tensioner (after taking out the plug) and with no surprise, it was one or two notches away from being maxed out. I decided to go ahead and order the timing and balancing chain kit from eEuroparts for about $210. It comes with chains, guides, gears, sprockets, several o-rings, cover gasket, and more. This is my write up to anyone out there considering the same job.





Tools:

2 trolley jacks

3 jack stands

wood

sockets (10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18) mm

wrenches of the same size, sears sells a pack for $10

a couple of 1/2 and 3/8 drive extensions.

Torque wrench, I had two (1/2, 3/8inch). Both $20 from amazon.

Jaw puller if needed which can be rented from AutoZone for free. (Pay deposit)



Start by draining coolant and oil from car. Coolant drain plug is located underneath car behind the front splash guard. Look for WIS explaining procedure.

Next, relieve tension of serpentine belt and remove the belt. There is a 1/2 inch slot located on the belt tensioner, above the alternator, that allows you to relieve tension when pulled towards front of car.



Remove top motor mount/yoke. Its the big horseshoe looking thing. It has four 16mm bolts, and one 18mm bolt.



Remove power steering pump, three screws accessed through the pulley holes. Next remove the bracket holding it, also three screws.



Now you have access to water pump. This ones a little tricky and can be frustrating, at least for me it was. Three screws hold it in place, two are clearly visible and screw into the timing cover. One is about 6 inches below the other two. There are two tubes that you must disconnect from the water pump. Also a banjo screw underneath and to the right on the water pump. Don't forget to remove the adapter that the pump sits into that goes into the engine block. It has two o-rings that must be replaced, mine were cracked.



There is one screw at the top of the AC compressor that must come off (16mm). It is clearly visible with the water pump removed.



Remove the idler pulley. Remove the belt tensioner with 8mm allen key. Remove Upper alternator pivot screw, also 8mm allen key. This one will most likely be seized so make sure to spray with WD-40 and use a big socket or something else as a breaker bar to remove the screw. I was not able to remove the bottom alternator screw, I ended up stripping it. I therefore removed the three bolts of the bottom bracket and was able to pry the alternator from above away from the engine still situated in the bottom bracket so alternator does not need to be removed. This gives you access to one of the four bolts on the tensioner bracket that must also be removed.



Please do yourself a favor and grab a flywheel lock from online I think they are $20. This tool would have saved me a lot of time. Remove the flywheel cover lock the flywheel with the tool or pry bar as I did. Remove the crankshaft pulley bolt (27mm) also with a breaker bar and long extensions.



Now remove the head cover and DI cassette making sure to not set it upside down, keep it upright. Now you can see the camshafts and two gears. Some say to remove the spark plugs but I didn't, I suggest it however it will make rotating the crankshaft by hand much easier. Rotate the pulley so that it aligns with timing cover notch (Top Dead Center), place the flywheel lock in. Make sure that camshaft notches also line up.



Now to have access to timing cover screws, you must unbolt all mounts. There are four. You should have already taken off the big horseshoe one. next is one located at rear of engine. It takes an 18mm socket. There is one located directly under relay box. Finally, transmission mount, located underneath battery, underneath car. You might want to consider having more than one trolley jack and at least 3 jack stands for the job. Support the gearbox with a trolley jack and wood. Support engine with trolley jack underneath oil sump.



So you definitely want to remove the sump for this job. This can be tough because there is seemingly no where to support the engine. I placed the crankpulley back on, and used a jack stand and a couple blocks of wood to support the engine while I removed the oil sump. To remove the oil sump, I lowered the exhaust by disconnecting its sensors, there are two, as well as unbolting three nuts that hold the exhaust. Look at sump drop tutorials.



Okay, sumps off, all that's left is the timing cover itself. This was tricky. I had to put my removed passenger side wheel underneath the car, place a trolley jack on top of it, place a thin small block of wood on it to jack up the engine where the sump meets the engine block on the rear side. Think about where the drain plug is, I located the trolley jack above the plug where the sump would meet the engine/ where the bolts go into.



Okay so now engine is supported by trolley jack and so you can remove the crank pulley which was previously supported by jack stand and wood. Grab a large 1/2 inch extension or a large piece of wood to lever the engine towards the drivers side. With all the mounts undone, you should be able to move it a couple of inches over. Now jack the engine up and down with the jack on top of the wheel to gain access to all timing cover bolts. Once they are all removed, bang the cover with rubber mallet. There isn't much space so I placed the input side of a 1/2 inch extension on the cover at angles and hit the other end with the mallet to finally break the seal.



Remove the chain tensioner. Remove the timing cover. (Make sure engine is locked in TDC with flywheel lock tool!!!!! This will save you a lot of time!). Remove all sprockets, guides, chains. Follow WIS for torque specs.