LoomZ Lost Her Belt

[mediabandit]

So, the first major problem with my Z34 has shown up. My wife was on her way home from the doctor this morning, she was coming down the offramp off the highway and all of a sudden the car died. She managed to get the car stopped before rear-ending the car in front of her. As you know, when there is no power to these cars, brakes and steering are a challenge for a small woman to say the least. So there she sits in the middle of the road unable to start the car. Ater trying to start it a few times, she calls me. So i head over to the car. Get there and check to make sure she is getting spark and fuel. Getting both... So by this time, the cops have shown up to block the road because she is in a very dangerous place.

He tells me that he will call a tow truck for me, so as we sit there and wait for the tow truck to show up i decide to pull the timing belt cover off to see if there was anything going on there, because the way she described it kinda sounded like a timing belt issue. Sure enough, the belt is gone, snapped in half.

So i get the tow truck to flatbed her out to the shop i take my cars to.

My mechanic called me this afternoon after it had it all apart and told me it was back together but he couldn't het the timing right. He said there were no marks for it. I told him there were only the original marks form the factory on it and that he couldn't use those. He had to go to the dealership and borrow the hold down kit. So he finally got it all back together and timed but he says there is a miss when he revs her up. so i had to go ahead and tell him that there is a rev limiter in park and neutral. So i head out there to have a listen to theis miss he is hearing. It does have a miss, but sounds like a very slight miss , i am thinking it is the fuel dump that soacked the plugs when the belt snapped. So iam going to head back out there tomorrow morning with the new plugs and wires i bought last week and never had time to change.

I had actually planned on having the timing belt done at the end of the summer before i put her back away. I looked at it during the winter and the belt seemed to be in perfect shape.

 

So he said it would be a total of 6hrs labor and the price of the belt. He didn't charge me for the time he took to go get tools from the dealer.

 

Labor $65.00/hrs x 6hrs = $390.00

Timing belt = $80.49

Plugs + wires = $210.00

Tax = $102.08

------------------------------------------

Total = $782.57

 

So i am going to order upper and lower gaskets and another new timing belt and start to tear the spare motor i have in the garage apart and rebuilt it. Just to have ready in case this one decides to have some issues.

[mediabandit]

Ok, so i was just talking to my buddy who owns the shop and he said he will hook me up with a better deal once it is all done tomorrow and ready to come home. He said that because he had never done the timing on a 3.4 like this before, that he was going to knock some money off the price cuz if he knew what he was doing he could have done it faster, also re-timing it a few times because of the slight miss added time as well. Plus he said that he now has experience doing them, so it was a learning experience and may come in useful at a later date.

In all honesty, i had no problem paying that price, but less is better.

 

 

 

Also, does anyone have any comments on the slight miss perhaps just being the excess fuell soaking the plugs? we'll change them in the morning either way. I was just curious if anyone on here could think of any other reason she would be missing.

[White93z34]

Man If you were closer I could beat that quote for sure. One of the few jobs I kind of enjoy doing.

[mediabandit]

That would have been cool.

It broke and i wanted it fixed right away, so i am willing to pay. I have never done one before either, although i am sure i could have figured it out either way, but don't have the time for that.

even though my guy hadn't done one before i know he always does good work and is very trustworthy, and will cut me deals whenever it is possible, so i had no issues with his price quote.

[White93z34]

I really hope he included new idlers, tensioner idler, and a hydraulic tensioner in that as well or else you could be back into the timing set sooner then you wanted to be. Last timing job I did for another member was caused by failure of old parts that should have been changed when the belt was done prior.

 

EDIT:

as far as your miss is concerned, change plugs and wires. hopefully a valve didn't get tagged on the way out, but its a higher mileage engine, right? if so you should be alright as long as she was not at WOT when it broke.

Edited May 6, 2010 by White93z34

[mediabandit]

All the idlers and tensioners were done last year when i took it in for a sloppy idler pulley. I have no reason why the belt snapped when we had it apart last year it looked brand new, so we never bothered changing it.

When the belt snapped, she didn't even have her foot on the gas pedal, she was slowing down and the end of the off ramp, just before the set of lights. She said she was going no more then 10kms/hr when it happened. So like you said it highly doubt it is a bad valve (hopefully). So ya, we will change plugs and wires and see if that solves it.

[mediabandit]

I went and picked up the car today, we changed the plugs and wires before i left the shop too, there was no more miss after that.

as for the price, well...... he told me that if i had cash he could do it for $450.00.... so out came the wallet and that was that. So i think that is a really good price for doing the timing belt job, that included parts, labor, shop supplies and everything else.

[GOT2B GM]

glad you got it all sorted out

[mediabandit]

Thanks.

[mediabandit]

Oh, i saved the old belt, it did not snap in half but down the middle, and there were probably a dozen of the rubber splines on the inside of the belt that were completely missing. I will upload a pic tomorrow when i get home.