GregAmy

Nice long holiday weekend so I figured I'd take a shot at doing the timing belt myself on the new-to-me 968. So far, so good.

Can I get some feedback on this VARIOCam condition? It looks good to me, teeth are whole all the way around, sharp edges on them, no evidence of wear. The chain is tight to the guides, no slack, but I can't really get a good read on the wear. Only visible thing that bothers me is the color, they're looking a bit old-ish (oil looks overdue). Car is a '92, 120k miles, no written service records. Prior owner says the belt was replaced 10 years and ~3,000 miles ago.

Any thoughts on where I can get a value-priced flywheel lock? I see one for $170 and, I guess I can do that, but I'd hate to spend that coin for something I'm going to use once every 10 years...does anyone rent them?

Thanks! - Greg

chudson

Greg - I’m a little surprised that the community has been so quiet on your question. Here’s my comments.

I’ve only ever installed new OE chain slides and they have arrived different colors over the years. IIRC one set arrived an ivory color and others have been a light caramel color.

As to yours, it may be an optical illusion but there looks to be a small chunk of plastic missing on the upper guide. Also, the lower guide cannot be seen very well even with a small inspection mirror and it could be in far worse condition. The summary is that at this age and mileage, it they are original they are past due replacement in my opinion.

As to your 10 year old timing belt, don’t trust it. No belt stays in any of my cars past 5 years and no more than 3 years on my track car. The rubber has degraded and the consequences of it breaking are catastrophic.

Renting or borrowing the tools needed to swap the belt may be tough. I do not know anyone who rents them. Also, I don’t know your skill level, but replacing the chain slides is a bit of a project for a novice technician or an entry level DIYer. I hope this has helped to some degree.

Cliff

GregAmy

Cliff, thanks for the response.

Decision has already been made: I'm replacing the belts, pulleys, and tensioners but keeping the guides in-place. I'm a fairly-competent DIY tech (I build and work on my own race cars and engines) but I agree with you that the guide replacement is probably more than I'm willing to take on. I emailed a couple local shops but no one got back to me so...off we go.

After some further inspection of the guides, including using a boroscope to check out the bottom one, the guides look fine to me except for the color. I'm not convinced these are original, I'm pretty sure they've been done some time before.

Timing belt parts received from FCP Euro (lifetime replacement) and the locking tool is inbound from Pelican. I'm in no rush, this car will likely be sitting around until the salt gets rained off the roads in April (I haven't even bothered to register it yet). We'll see how it goes. Thanks! - GA

chudson

Gotcha. My only closing comment is that destroyed guides destroy the chain, which then destroys the cam gears, which then makes a bad situation much worse. But with your knowledge level you already understand that. Best wishes for your project!

Cliff

GregAmy

Totally concur on the risk. Let's hope I'm not wrong...

The 968 will only get maybe 2k miles per year to start with, unless it replaces the daily driver GTI -- which itself only got 4k miles total last year (I'm work-from-home/semi-retired; to be fair, the 914 was down in '23 for some engine work, so miles on the GTI coulda been even fewer). I'm sure I'll be replacing its timing belt again in 5 years, at which time I'll reevaluate the guides. I can also pull the valve cover quite easily for an interim inspection.

Another "risk" is I'm going with the Continental belts and pulleys kit. Gates seems to be the strong preference on most 968 boards. But I've been a Continental fan for some time and have had good service. Plus, FCP Euro will credit me for the old parts when the next time comes about to do the job again. They even do that on oil changes...yeah, they'll credit you for oil changes if you return the old oil and filters. It's a loss leader for them but it clearly works, so... <shrug>

The last unknown right now is how tight to do the balance shafts belt using the "twist" method. Does anyone have some good links for that? The current belt can be twisted 90-degrees with some level of finger effort; seems loose to me but I'm likely to go back to that same thing. After all, it's just driving a couple of oiled, balanced shafts so should not require serious tightness. - GA