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  Sierra 1.8 Turbo Diesel Timing belts Changing

 timing belts with cam pully and injection pully pegged              Sierra               timing belts
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This is the cam and injection pump belt changing page for the 1.8 Turbo Diesel sierra engine. Due to the amount of emails I've had regarding this subject I have decided to add this page to help people out. The Haynes 1.8 diesel manual doesn't strictly speaking cover the Sierra 1.8 diesel engine, but it is close enough and can be used to set up the engine in general and is still worth buying.
The main difference for the Sierra engine is the water pump, which is 'fan belt' driven on the sierra and cam belt driven on the Front wheel drive 1.8 Diesel. The sierra has an extra black plastic guide pulley located directly above the crank shaft pulley (see photo's above), this pulley is not included in any replacement "cam belt kit" it is advisable to change this when changing the cam belt and the pulley is only available from a ford dealer.

Cam Belt Kits
A cam belt kit consists of a cam belt, black plastic cam belt tensioner pulley, metal toothed guide pulley (early engines may have plastic toothed guide pulley fitted but must be fitted with metal replacement), injection pump belt and black plastic tensioner pulley. I would strongly advise fitting a Cam belt kit rather than just the timing belts on their own, 1.8 diesel engine's are well known for snapping cam belts, it is not the fault of the belt itself for snapping, its usually one of two reasons for snapping, 1- guide/tensioner pulley failure or 2- incorrect tensioning of the belt. It is recommended that the belts and pulley's should be changed at 36,000miles or 3 years, However in my personal experience, the bearings in the pulley's in after market cam belt kits (e.g. not genuine ford) can be  pretty worn in just 20,000 miles so be warned!!!

Fitting Cam Belt Kits
This section is best used in conjunction with the diagram above for reference.
First, remove water pump belt and alternator belt and then the cam belt covers, turn the crankshaft (CS) so that the slot in the injection pump (IP) is in the position  3  behind the alternator mounting bracket on the engine block is a blanking bolt, remove and insert Top Dead Centre TDC setting pin 4  then continue turning the CS by hand until the crank contacts with the TDC setting pin remove the crankshaft auxiliary pulley, the IP will be in position  11 . The locking pins  5  &  6  (or you can use 6mm drill bits) can now be inserted into cam pulley (CA) and injection pump pulley (IP). Slacken both belt tensioners  8  &  12  to remove the timing belts. Slacken the 4 & 3 bolts on the CA  10  and IP  13  . if you are replacing guide pulley's and tensioners, remove and refit the new ones. Fit the new belts and tension the belts (twist the belt thru 90 degrees at longest length of the belt as a guide to correct tension) tighten tensioners then tighten the 4 & 3 bolts on CA  10  and IP  13 . remove locking pins and TDC setting pin. The rest is reversal of removal
 


     

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