Re: How to change a Hyundai Santa Fe 2.7L timing belt

On Tuesday, October 9, 2007 at 9:10:00=E2=80=AFAM UTC-5, [email protected]=
m wrote:
> The dealer will charge you $600 plus tax to change your timing belt.
> Is it worth 6 or 7 hours of your time to save $500? Well, the belt
> itself will cost you only $90 at the dealer (ask for a 10% discount on
> the part). (I don't recommend using an off-brand belt. Why skimp just
> to save $20, when you're putting in 6 hours of labor?) So if you'd
> gladly put in 6 hours of labor to "earn" $500, read on.
> I have a 2002 Santa Fe 2.7L 2WD, but any 2001-2006 2.7L Santa Fe
> engine should be pretty
> identical. Yesterday I replaced the timing belt. Took about 7 hours.
> One hour was figuring out how to get the crankshaft pulley off.
> It's not difficult - just a bit time-intensive to remove everything
> to
> get to the belt. If you have access to Chilton manuals or AllData,
> then you can get some pics to go with what I describe below.
> Here's the basics for changing a Hyundai Santa Fe 2.7L timing belt:
> OVERALL: Everything is metric. You'll need a good metric socket set.
> In my opinion, the longer the socket wrench you have, the easier and
> quicker the job will go. You'll find most bolts are "stuck" and take
> a
> good amount of force to initially break loose. But with a long socket
> wrench, you don't have to push that hard to apply this force. Once
> the
> bolts initially break free, most of them can be unscrewed the rest of
> the way by hand. Seriously, having a long socket wrench will take an
> hour off the job. Also, a good air-driven impact wrench is a MUST for
> this job. You cannot complete the job without it (unless you have a
> special tool to hold the crankshaft pulley from rotating while
> unbolting it).
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> 1. Remove the plastic engine cover. 5 or 6 bolts.
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> 2. Remove the front passenger wheel. Put an extra jack stand
> underneath the car frame for safety. I actually dropped my vehicle on
> the rotor because the Hyundai Santa Fe's rear spare tire carrier bolt
> gets so rusty, it really shakes the car trying to unscrew it and get
> the spare tire out (and that's after two liberal dousings with WD-40)
> - the vibrations and shaking can cause the vehicle to fall off the
> wimpy car jack that comes with the vehicle.
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> 3. Remove the plastic wheel well panel behind the front passenger
> wheel. It's held on by 3 or 4 bolts along the top of the panel. To
> see
> these bolts, you kinda have to get your head into the wheel well and
> look up at the top of the panel. Removing this panel gives you access
> to the front of the engine (which faces the passenger side of the
> vehicle).
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> 4. Remove the serpentine accessory belt. Just take an extra-long
> socket wrench - the wrench's square fits in the end of the belt
> tensioner - and pull the tensioner clockwise to take tension off the
> belt, and then slip the belt off one of the pulleys. Easiest to do
> this coming through the wheel well, but could probably be done from
> above, too. The belt will not actually come completely off until you
> unbolt the tensioner.
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> 5. Unbolt the serpentine belt tensioner. There are two long bolts
> that
> hold it on. Take the tensioner and serpentine belt off. You'll see
> that the tensioner covered a hole in the timing belt case, and
> through
> that hole you should now see a portion of the cogged timing belt.
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> 6. Unbolt the power steering pump pulley. It's the top pulley in the
> middle. You'll need to stick something through one of the holes in
> the
> pulley to keep the pulley from turning as you unbolt it. I used a
> smaller socket wrench with a long socket on it, holding on to the
> socket wrench and sticking the socket through the pulley's hole,
> jamming the socket against the body of the power steering pump behind
> the pulley. Remove the nut and the pulley.
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> 7. You may need to unbolt the cruise control module at this point in
> preparation for jacking the engine. I did as a precaution, but
> discovered that on the 2002 Santa Fe, I really didn't need to.
> However, I have read an internet post that pointed out that on their
> Santa Fe, failure to unbolt the cruise control module caused the
> cable
> to come uncrimped when the engine was jacked, and that caused the
> engine to race after everything was put back together. Unbolting the
> module prevents its cable from getting pulled too far when you jack
> the engine.
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> 8. Place a block of wood on a hydraulic jack underneath the engine
> oil
> pan, and jack it up to support the front of the engine. ("Jack it up"
> here means to raise up the jack, not "mess it all up".) The oil pan
> is
> immediately below the front of the engine (just behind the pulleys).
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> 9. Unbolt the front engine bracket and take it off. This is done from
> the top. One bolt on the vehicle frame side (on top of the wheel
> well)
> and three bolts and/or nuts on the engine side.
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> 10. Remove the serpentine belt idler pulley. Easy to come off. No
> need
> to hold pulley from turning, because the bolt goes through to the
> engine. Be careful once you get the bolt off - basically you have
> this
> pulley sandwiched by two plates - make sure you don't lose the back
> plate and you know which way it goes back on the pulley.
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> 11. Remove the other half of the engine bracket still attached to the
> engine. First, you'll need to remove the small bolt on this bracket
> that faces the front of the vehicle. This bolt holds on the engine
> oil
> dipstick tube. Then, you'll find another small bolt facing the
> passenger side near the top of the bracket - this bolt is impossible
> to see, but you'll be able to feel for it. Access this bolt from
> under
> the hood. Then return to the wheel well and remove three large bolts
> and the bracket will be free.
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> Before you remove the crankshaft pulley, you'll need to make sure the
> timing belt is properly aligned. To do so, you must remove the top
> half of the timing belt cover next.
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> 12. Remove top half of the timing belt cover, by removing three bolts
> around rear sprocket, three bolts around front sprocket, and one long
> bolt at the bottom of this cover. This cover only goes halfway down
> the engine, so you can get to all these bolts from the engine
> compartment. I believe they require a 10mm socket.
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> 13. Once the top half of the cover is removed, you will want to
> locate
> the timing marks on the exposed sprockets. It's a little dot
> imprinted
> on the front of each sprocket. Best viewed looking under the hood
> from
> the passenger side. The dots need to be aligned with the timing marks
> on the engine case. The timing mark on the engine case for the left
> sprocket (towards the rear of the vehicle) is a little notch located
> at about 11:00, and the timing mark for the right sprocket (towards
> the front of the vehicle) is at about 1:00.
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> 14. Once you've located the timing marks on the sprockets and the
> engine, put a long wrench on the crankshaft pulley center nut and
> rotate the pulley clockwise until you get the top sprocket timing
> marks in place. (The crankshaft pulley is the very bottom center
> pulley. You access it through the wheel well.) You'll notice that
> when
> you get the top timing marks in place, the crankshaft pulley timing
> mark will be more or less aligned with a protrusion on the timing
> belt
> cover (at about the 1:00 position). If the bottom pulley is not
> perfectly aligned with one of the marks, don't worry about it. The
> important thing is to have the top timing marks for both sprockets
> perfectly aligned. Once you remove the crankshaft pulley and bottom
> half of the pulley cover, you'll see that the crankshaft sprocket
> tooth is properly aligned. You'll also notice that you have to turn
> the crankshaft pulley two entire revolutions to get the top sprockets
> to turn a single revolution. They are geared exactly 2:1.
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> 15. Soak the crankshaft pulley bolt with WD-40 where its shoulder
> meets the pulley. I found this to be important.
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> 16. Use an air impact wrench to remove the crankshaft pulley bolt
> (counterclockwise). I found that the air impact wrench on maximum
> setting was enough to loosen the bolt without actually turning the
> crankshaft. It may take about half a minute to loosen up. If it
> doesn't want to come off, try some more WD-40 and let it sit awhile.
> If you try to use a socket wrench, you'll just end up turning the
> engine backwards. AN AIR IMPACT WRENCH IS A MUST TO DO THIS, unless
> you have a special tool to hold the crankshaft pulley still while
> turning its bolt counterclockwise. The crankshaft pulley bolt will
> come off along with a thick spacer.
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> 17. Remove the crankshaft pulley. You'll probably need to wiggle it
> back and forth as you pull it straight off. The more you can wiggle
> it, the easier it is to come off. The pulley is "keyed" to the
> crankshaft with a pin (located now at about the 1:00 position). This
> pin will stay on the crankshaft, and will be what you use to make
> sure
> the crankshaft is aligned once you get the new timing belt on.
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> 18. Remove the lower timing belt cover. 10mm socket is used to remove
> the 4 or so bolts holding it on (best accessed through wheel well).
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> 19. Notice now that the crankshaft (where you pulled the crankshaft
> pulley off from) has its pin (the pin we mentioned in step 17)
> aligned
> with a timing mark on the engine. Take note of this alignment! You'll
> see the teeth on the crankshaft that drive the timing belt. One of
> these teeth is aligned with the pin, and therefore aligned with the
> mark on the engine.
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> NOTE: Take stock of how taut the timing belt is at this point. This
> is
> what the belt feels like under tension. It's pretty tense, right?
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> 20. Remove the timing belt auto-tensioner. It is the cylinder-looking
> thing up and to the left of the crankshaft. Two bolts hold it on.
> Unbolt these bolts, and tension on the timing belt is released.
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> 21. After removing the timing belt auto-tensioner, use a large C-
> clamp
> to slowly compress the pin in the auto-tensioner all the way, until
> you can slip a pin or smooth end of an old drill bit in through the
> little hole on the top of the auto-tensioner. This hole locks the
> tensioner's pin in the compressed position. Before you put the pin
> in,
> cover the pin with WD-40, and spray a little WD-40 in the little hole
> on the top of the auto-tensioner too (front and back). The pin should
> go all the way through from the front, through the center pin, and
> through the back. Enough of the pin (or old drill bit) should be
> sticking out the front so you can later grab it with a pair of pliers
> and pull it out).
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> 22. Enough tension should have been released from the timing belt so
> you can now gently pull it off.
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> CAUTION: Be very careful not to rotate the belt at this point as you
> are taking it off, or as you are putting the new belt on. The reason
> is because the left top sprocket has its springs in the compressed
> position (at the top of the hill, so to speak). If you rotate this
> left top sprocket even one tooth, its compressed energy will cause it
> to rotate about 8 teeth, taking it out of timing with the crankshaft
> and the right top sprocket. This is the voice of experience talking.
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> CHECK: Check the idler and tensioner pulleys that they are in good
> condition, and turn freely with little to no play. Replace if needed.
>=20
> 23. Temporarily put the crankshaft pulley back on (no need to put its
> bolt in), and rotate the crankshaft pulley by hand back (counter
> clockwise) about 5 degrees. Shouldn't be too hard to do, because the
> crankshaft is not in a position where it takes much force to move at
> this point. Pull the pulley back off and check where you are at. Keep
> doing this until you have moved the crankshaft by one tooth. In other
> words, you need to rotate the crankshaft so that instead of the
> crankshaft pin being aligned with the mark on the engine, the tooth
> to
> the right (clockwise) of that pin is aligned with the mark on the
> engine. WHY DO WE DO THIS? Because there will be a little bit of
> slack
> between the right top sprocket and the crankshaft sprocket when you
> install the new belt. You'll find that after taking up this slack,
> the
> crankshaft will be properly aligned with the top sprockets. But don't
> worry. We'll be double-checking to make sure we got it right.
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> NOTE: The timing belt tensioner pulley is towards the left (towards
> rear of vehicle), and the idler pulley is towards the right (front of
> vehicle).
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> 24. Put on the new timing belt in this order: First, put it on the
> crankshaft sprocket at the bottom. Next, from under the hood pull the
> timing belt snug against the idler pulley (don't pull hard - just
> enough to remove most of the slack), and wrap the belt counter
> clockwise around the right top sprocket (the sprocket towards the
> front of the vehicle). With the teeth of the belt engaged on the
> right
> top sprocket, pause to check the play in the belt between the
> sprocket
> and the crankshaft sprocket. Remember when you took stock of how taut
> the old belt was? The belt should not be this tight. But then, it
> shouldn't be so loose that it comes off the idler pulley. There
> should
> be just a little bit of slack, which will be taken up when you later
> on replace the crankshaft pulley. Continue wrapping the new timing
> belt around the water pump pulley (smack dab in the middle of the
> engine, between all 3 sprockets, and then back up around the left top
> sprocket (toward the rear of the vehicle). Make sure that there is AS
> LITTLE PLAY in the belt between the two top sprockets as possible.
> The
> belt should be nice and snug between these two. The belt should be
> pretty tight at this point. You should have just enough play left in
> the belt to muscle it over the tensioner pulley (which is currently
> not under tension). If that is so, you can be assured that your
> timing
> belt is probably properly installed.
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> 25. Now we check the timing belt installation. DO NOT CHECK THE
> SPROCKET ALIGNMENT YET. FIRST WE HAVE TO ROTATE THE TIMING BELT
> CLOCKWISE TO DISTRIBUTE THE TENSION ON THE BELT PROPERLY. Bolt the
> tensioner pulley auto-tensioner back on (two bolts). In one quick
> movement, pull out the pin (or old drill bit) from the auto-tensioner
> with a pair of pliers.
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> 26. Temporarily put the crankshaft pulley back on, and screw in on
> with its center bolt.
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> 27. With a long wrench on the crankshaft pulley center bolt, rotate
> this pulley two entire revolutions until the two top sprocket timing
> marks have made one entire revolution and are lined up once again
> with
> the timing marks on the engine. As you start to rotate the crankshaft
> pulley, you should see the auto-tensioner pin come out and return to
> its normal length. The entire timing belt should return to the
> tension
> you observed on the old belt before removing the auto-tensioner. If
> not, then you need to remove the auto-tensioner and check it.
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> 28. Remove the crankshaft pulley center bolt with the air impact
> wrench, and remove the pulley.
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> 29. CHECK THE ALIGNMENT CAREFULLY. ALL THREE SPROCKETS SHOULD NOW BE
> ALIGNED TO THEIR TIMING MARKS. If even one timing mark is off, you'll
> need to pull the belt back off and reinstall. It is easy to see if a
> timing mark is off by one tooth. Just look at the belt and the
> sprockets and observe the distance from one tooth to the next. If any
> one of the three timing marks is off by this amount or more, your
> timing is maligned. But if the marks are off only a smidgen (a small
> fraction of the distance between two adjacent teeth), then your
> timing
> is aligned.
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> 30. IF YOUR TIMING BELT IS MISALIGNED, GO BACK TO STEP 20. Note that
> it is easier to align the crankshaft individually than the top
> sprockets, so if the top sprockets are in sync with each other but
> out
> of sync with the crankshaft, turn the crankshaft until the top
> sprockets are aligned with their timing marks, remove the belt, then
> temporarily put the crankshaft pulley back on and adjust it.
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> NOTE: It is ok to turn the crankshaft back a few degrees if you need
> to. You may be able to do this by hand by just pushing the crankshaft
> pulley on the crankshaft (without its mounting bolt) and turning the
> pulley by hand. However, if you need to adjust the top sprockets,
> you'll probably need to turn the crankshaft in clockwise direction
> using a socket on its center bolt. However, if you need to go an
> entire revolution on one of the top sprockets, you'll need to do so
> with the timing belt installed, so the entire engine rotates more or
> less in sync.
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> NOTE 2: After each time you rotate the timing belt via the crankshaft
> pulley's center mounting bolt, you'll need to remove the crankshaft
> pulley via the air impact wrench.
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> 31. IF YOUR TIMING BELT IS NOW ALIGNED (all three timing marks on the
> sprockets are lined up with the three timing marks on the engine) ,
> IT'S TIME TO PUT EVERYTHING BACK TOGETHER, in the reverse order of
> what you took it off.
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> NOTES: When reinstalling the top half of the engine bracket (the one
> that attaches between engine and frame), you may need to jack the
> engine a little higher in order to get this bracket snug against the
> bottom half of the engine bracket.
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> DO NOT RESTART YOUR ENGINE UNTIL YOU WORK YOUR WAY BACK PAST STEP 4.
> (But don't put the vehicle in drive until you work your way back past
> step 2.)




So I love this write up and wish I had found sooner... I made a critical er=
ror and would love some assist please.   Everything went smooth I did water=
pump at same time etc... I went to put belt on and somehow got lower crank =
to move out what is problably only a tooth or two... but not knowing what I=
 know now I rushed and spun the lower crank clockwise not thinking of the i=
nteral aspect and so I topped it out.... the upper are still sitting as I d=
id this without belt...=20
how can i rotate the lower crank back to position after turning so far?