Cambelt schedule change is or was from new 60k or 5 years, in the real world they do probably last longer, however when purchasing a new zed that has little or no history the sensible thing to do is to change it anyway and you then have a base to work from.

 

Case in point last week, new owner and despite been advised by the previous owner it had been done and had little mileage on it he decided to get get it done anyway as there was no proof.

 

When the front was stipped down the belt did look from a quick look in good order, but the belt pulleys told a different story, the imprinted material is a mix of belt fibre and general dirt pounded onto the surface of the pulleys by the rolling action of the belt.

 

To be fair this is not too unusual but given the belt had been changed ( along with a water pump too ) suggests the imprinted material was from the previous belt and had not been cleaned off! as it was the pulley was toast anyway (noisey) so was changed along with a new belt, not a biggy I know but does show some lack of care by who ever changed the belt.

 

Just because it is an area not seen once the covers are on there is no reason to not be as keen to clean it up when in there as anywhere else, in fact we always blow out the area with an air line and the amount of fine black dust that comes from in and benhind the top sprockets is surprising.

 

Jeff TT

 

 

 

Yup, cam belts are usually one of the first things I do when I've bought any car tbh. There has been the odd occasion that there's actually a sticker in the engine bay and/or a receipt for one, where I haven't bothered for a while, but the Z we just broke for example, Sandy was sure there was a receipt somewhere for the cam belt being changed just before he got it, as he'd sought it out when he bought it, but we never found it in the pile of receipts he gave us (And he did give us a fair few too) so we've wanted to get it changed for ages.

 

I'll be stripping the engine down in a few days time, ready to use it as a big build engine, so we'll see how a low mileage, but old belt looks.