Timing belt should I

Got a 200 tdi in my series 3 struggling to find someone reliable , local to do the timing belt so thinking of doing it myself question on a scale of one to ten how difficult ?

Hard question to answer without knowing your abilities really - but not a hard job .. maybe 4/10 ?

I do 300's quite regularly - IMO, it's more tedious than difficult..

Lots of info on the glencoyne site:- http://www.glencoyne.co.uk/belt.htm

And also on the tube - specifically Britanica restorations - Mike has some, actually, many brilliant vids up

Plus, us lot can help remotely

Timing kits are cheap on the bay or you can make your own if you have a lathe..

As Disco says There is a kit you can but pay which locks the flywheel and cam wheel this helps prevent movement to get new belt on , have a search on here too maybe someone has done a guide, there are the instructions from manual too

If all the timing chest bolts come outs its not bad at all, but the three around the waterway passenger side have a habit of seizing or snapping, then it could be whole timing chest off.
200 harder to do than a 300
Plus in a series the flywheel timing pin hole is blocked by the chassis cross member, so you cannot use the timing pin.
Then you have to have the means to undo the crank bolt, and pull the damper and possibly the crank gear if the oil seal is wet.
So whilst it is not a hard job it could become very hard very quickly.

@My Old Landy and me did the 200tdi on mine. All went reasonably well. There are a couple of tools you need (can be home made) and then there is the hulking torque requirements of the dog nut (so 6’ torque wrench required). One of the water pump bolts did spin for ever and looked/feared it had snapped. It had a worn thread and a new bolt solved the issue. Without the help of Brian I wouldn’t have attempted it and fortunately he machined bearing presses and fashioned a crank nut restraining tool. Smashing chap

Do a map of the cover bolts on a piece of cardboard and push the bolts through the card in the right place as you take them out because they are different lengths
I used drill bits to hold things in place while belt was off
I had to put a bar on the crank bolt and spin the starter to get it off on a couple that I did
Time it up (including flywheel) before you take belt off
Some bolts near water pump may be seized
Best of luck with it

Stuff all that for a laugh

Col

landowner said:

I had to put a bar on the crank bolt and spin the starter to get it off on a couple that I did

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Ballsy, respect

doriz said:

Ballsy, respect

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That was the way everybody did it years ago when you did not have access to an air gun or nowadays a cordless impact wrench

Some serious food for thought there however as it’s not a daily driver I’m thinking I’ll give it a go , thanks for the input gents much appreciated

I did mine with a mate (my first time) a year ago - was actually much easier than I though using the timing kit, just double check everything and do a couple of manual test rotations to make sure it all works before you put it back together.

most of the faff was the dismantling to get to it all tbh, it’s not necessary but we drained and removed the rad so we could see what we were doing - my mate thought that would be beneficial to me first time so I could understand the alignment etc - he doesn’t bother usually as he runs a workshop so can do them in his sleep….