Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2007 13:50:51 -0400
Reply-To: Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jim Akiba <syncrolist@BOSTIG.COM>
Subject: Re: Timing Chains, Belts, Gears, etc
In-Reply-To: <467D1FE3.7040203@videotron.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
The thread started with a question as to the in-place difficulty of changing
a subie timing belt. A labor time contrary to that stated in a previous post
was reported, it was questioned, then the thread-a-splode.
With regard to someone trying to find a low point, bad point... good. They
should. They should be grilling, challenging, and questioning everything
anyone says about something where others stand to make money like an engine
conversion. All too often people take the first thing they can either
identify with, or that makes sense to them, and incorporate it into their
belief system on some form of faith, usually in the person that said it in a
position of "expertise"... hence the similarity to religion that we are all
familiar with. It's not ideal, but it's reality. There is quite a bit of
material and concepts to cover, and if someone hears something from someone
they already consider in a position of expertise, they will usually believe
it instead of committing to all the extra work that would be required
outside of their normal amount of evaluation work to satisfy a given
question in *their* area of expertise. SO that's where the value of the
list lies. The things that people say on the list are not JUST considered by
a single person's own internal evaluation, but those of many people.
Sometimes this leads to a real mess, but it can protect the "airwaves" from
pollution as well, because if something is said, chances are better with the
group that someone else will know something on the matter and protest if
they feel something is incorrect. I like that. Combined expertise and
opinion available at your finger tips is awesome.
Jim Akiba
-----Original Message-----
From: benoit [mailto:huotb@VIDEOTRON.CA]
Sent: 2007-06-23 9:28 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Timing Chains, Belts, Gears, etc
Interesting post.
One thing got me this morning, 80-90% of you guys are driving a vehicle
equiped with a T-Belt.
So what is the point of that thread about T-Belt and Subi????
I feel that some are just trying to find a "low/bad point/reason" in
that type of conversion?
Some people (Bostig, Vanaru, Ticco) are working hard to do very good and
reliable conversion for our aging vans...
Let's applaud them!
I have arguments with Jim, but it's fun, i hope he think the same, i
almost got one of his conversion, but things went the other way because
Hans is a friend, i'm sure the ZTEC is an amazing conversion, i can see
all the work they have put there, i'm eager to try one one day. I also
have some customers with VW TD and 2.0L VW engine, they loved them, they
are mostly trouble free. So bravo to you all. There is also a guy call
B-Bob who work hard to build reliable wasser, well, thank you Bob.
Frank C. went all around Mexico last year with a B.Bob engine, again, bravo.
And you know what, i have built also an engine for a 62 yo lady that
went all around Mexico last winter (remember the radiator thread), she
did 14,000k, so Bravo to me!
GoWesty, Van-cafe, Busdepot, Vanagain and some other sell good hard
parts to find, so Bravo to them.
There is no perfect world, but i think we are going the right way.
Ben
Dvdclarksn@aol.com wrote:
> Yes they certainly will break. It happened to me with my 82 diesel
> Westy. The Stooge that installed my engine (was sold as "new" but was
> a polished junk yard relic-won't go there now) neglected to replace
> the timing belt cover. When I asked him why he said that I really
> didn't want that on there because a rock could get caught inside of
> it and break the belt?! Well just the opposite happened. A rock spun
> up and broke the belt, bent valves and resulted in replacing the
> entire cylinder head to the tune of $1600.00. Granted this was not
> death by natural causes but more of a freak accident that left me
> madder than hell anyway. I was young dumb and ignorant and learned an
> expensive lesson. I work in the service dept. of a Honda dealership
> and we replace most timing belts at 7 yrs. or 105, 000 miles per
> Honda's recommendation. We usually don't see many break unless they
> get to about 175,000 miles or more. Honda realized this and saw that
> many people were dismissing this as Honda's attempt to generate more
> business in the service dept. before it was really needed. What I have
> seen now is that the timing belts on the new Honda v6 engines are
> thinner and narrower than the ones that were used on the early 80's
> Civics! Maybe they are made of a stronger rubber compound or maybe
> they will truly fail around the end of their predicted life span.
> Timing belts will fail, not often but it does happen and when it does
> an interference engine will require big bucks for valve replacement
> and head work. It can be an expensive gamble.
>
> David Clarkson
> 90 Westy (240k)
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> See what's free at AOL.com
> <http://www.aol.com?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000503>.
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