On Wed, 17 Mar 2004, Donald Baxter / Iowa City, Iowa wrote: > One of the things that concerns me is fragility of the rubber timing belt on > such a high tolerance engine. What's the replacement interval for these > things? It was 40,000 miles, then 60,000. I broke a rubber timing belt on > a 16V gas (at 38,000 miles, mind you) and got lucky--no damage (happened on > decellaration). There is no such thing as luck when these things break on a > diesel given their high compression ratios. There's no such thing as luck when one breaks on a Honda, either, but people accept timing belt changes as a maintenance item. You're going to see more and more gas engines going to interference designs anyway, due to emissions requirements. Keep in mind that most timing belts have a *time* restriction as well as a milage restriction. Rubber decays with age, so you can't replace them strictly by milage. > Still, if my municipality of Iowa City would enforce our noise regulations > against motorcycles, specifically our very loud Harley community (and how > obnoxious are they? Loud pipes don't save lives--but they may just wake the > dead.) maybe someone around here might get sensitive about diesels. I'd say that once they're done with the motorcycles, the boomer cars, and the pickups running straight pipes, then people *might* get interested in quieting down diesels.
David Brodbeck, N8SRE '82 Volkswagen Diesel Westfalia '86 Volvo 240DL wagon |
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