Changing the drive belt
The belts wear out, I changed my first one after 15000 miles. Official service interval is ?? Cost was £26 plus the VAT; sorry I forgot that earlier :o(
I was told the two plastic washers (£9.50+vat) should be changed at the same time to allow for the wider new belt.
You are supposed to be able to wangle on a new belt by the roadside in emergency by wedging the rear pulley apart and riding the belt over the side of the front one. I wouldn't do this except as a get-you-home, I can't see it doing the belt any good.
Anyway, to get the variator (front pulley) off, you need access to it. My model has a soft inner wing for sound muffling, with a circular access panel. A No.2 Philips Screwdriver should get the screws out:
The front pulley is on a taper, held on by a long thin bolt. 13mm head. Since the flywheel behind has considerable mass, I put a socket on with a long extension, and shocked it round with a mallet to slacken the bolt:
The pulley was tight on the taper. I tapped it (GENTLY - IT IS THIN ALLOY!) and no joy. Then I wedged it off with a couple of large screwdrivers behind the flywheel bolts. NOTE AGAIN - NOT AGAINST THE PULLEY EDGE! It gave and popped off. See the bolts below. They are close to the strong pulley boss and I reckoned they would stand this crude treatment.
It is possible there is a better way, looking back there could be threads down the pulley centre for a puller. If I find out I will amend this page.
If you want a closer look at the bits which came off click on the thumbnails below.
Once I got the belt off I could compare it with the new one and give it a better inspection. Apart from wearing narrower, it appeared in good condition, no cracks or frays. The outer is scrubbed a bit by the bar which keeps the belt off the left inner CV joint. I have not seen another with a corrugated outer face. Old belt 32.7mm wide, new one 34.3mm wide.
To get the new wear washers in, the variator has to come apart. The large nut is 30mm across and mine was TIGHT. It had some white stuff on the thread which I took to be a threadlock so I put some of my own on when I reassembled it. I had to use my adjustable spanner, not having a socket of this size. I warmed the nut a little, not wanting to melt the internals and put the pulley down on a rubber mat with my feet in it, knocked the spanner round with a mallet. It came undone.
It will come in half once the nut and steel cone are off:
BEWARE! Small washers on the centre, don't lose them they adjust the pulley width. 6 on this one.
Now you need the plastic washers out. They are sprung apart by a big spring inside, which needs compressing. You could possibly squash this by hand, but then would need more hands to get the circlip out. I used a big coach bolt and a socket to compress the spring, whereupon the circlip was easily removed by small screwdriver. The clip looked remarkably like a piston ring! Here is the bolt in place:
Then the whole sprung assembly can be dropped out and bolt relaxed:
The whole lot drops apart. Watch out for the washers there are more in there. The plastic washers are the big black ones. See the circlip above the mauve spring.
I brushed the dust out and reassembled. There is a bearing on the centre spindle. The belt rests on this when the engine is idling so it doesn't burn out on the pulley bottom. This one rotated smoothly.
Re-assembly, as they say, is the reverse of the above and wasn't any trouble. The only other thing I did was to replace the wear tips on the rear pulley. One was missing, probably just cracked and fell off. The best I can describe them as is a sort of Monopoly bungalow in black plastic. They slide up and down on the ramps as the rear pulley changes width. Another quite cheap wearing part, I replaced them as a set (£4.50+vat):
Not too bad to change. I put the car in gear, propped a stick on the footbrake, and then turned the pulley half carrying the tips by hand to pull them off the ramps. They are a simple push fit held by the spring pressure. You can see by the layer of dust on the lower mount it has been missing for a while. The one above is cleaner and has been covered up.
It should look like this: Note this view from top so it looks backwards.
Anyway, I'm happy to say Ickle Car is back on the road, and either due to the belt or 3 wear tips instead of 2, the take-up from idle is much smoother, it used to judder quite heavily as the car moved off, smoothing out when the belt was fully engaged. No judder at all now, fingers crossed it remains that way :o)
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