[V8] I'm with Scott

[dsaad at icehouse.net]

More fuel for the fire:
The first timing belt I did for my V8, I of course replaced the water pump
even though the OEM one looked fine. This was the first t-belt job the car
had. It turned out that the new pump failed way before the t-belt was due
for a change. If I had it to do over again, I would have run all the
bearings and water pump at least up to 120K miles. Possibly even 180K
knowing that the aftermarket stuff is of far lesser quality. eg: the
bearings have fewer balls in them.

I also replaced the water pump on my explorer at 150K just because I was
going on a long trip and thought it was a good preventive measure. I made
the trip OK, but the pump failed twice in the next two years. It was a
good (?) quality part from NAPA. I went back to the OEM Ford part after
that.

For a pro mechanic I guess you would have been covered since you can't be
blamed for a part that fails prematurely, but at least for the first new
belt it seems reasonable to me to reuse parts that "look" good. Think
about the roller bearings in your alternator. They take a far bigger
beating turning at 2 or 3 times the crank speed and they easily last 100K
miles. 150k is common. Alternators generally get replaced for electrical
reasons - not mechanical, and I am calling worn out brushes or commutator
electrical here.

Because I am funny this way, I pulled the grease seal off the fan belt
idler on my old ranger many years ago and re-greased the bearing. I just
wanted to see how far it would go. I just replaced it this year because it
was starting to growl so loud I could hear it while driving. It had
somewhere north of 400K miles and 30 years on it.


Dave

> I do all my own work and I do some work on the side.  I recently had a
> customers v8 here and I re-did every seal in the motor and trans - except
> for the head gaskets.  I didn't realize they were leaking because I
> thought all the other gaskets were causing the puddles - bad assumption. 
> I had to eat over 13hrs labor because I felt I should have made the
> customer replace them while I had it apart.  I didn't make him pay for all
> the 'double work' because it was the right thing to do - but - I won't
> make that mistake again!  Because of that my own personal a8 is getting
> head gaskets now while I have it out to put a 6spd in it.  It just isn't
> worth the possible headache to me anymore over a couple bucks or even a
> couple hundred.  To each his own.
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Mike Arman <Armanmik at earthlink.net>
> To: v8 at audifans.com
> Sent: Friday, August 30, 2013 3:24 PM
> Subject: [V8] I'm with Scott
>
>
>
>
> I'm with Scott on this. I do my own work for two reasons, first, I enjoy
> it (somewhat), and second,
> I don't like to pay for something I can do myself.
>
>
> The first V-8 timing belt I did was in 2007, in the middle of the summer,
> outside. I could do an I-5
> belt in about 2.5 hours from open hood to wash hands, and not work
> tremendously hard to do that. The
> V8 took me 14 hours of sweating in the sun over four days.
>
> Admittedly, that was the first one, and I am sure I could beat that time
> now considering I have a
> decent place to work, have sourced all the tools, and so on.
>
> Let me put it this way - there is NO WAY I would do this without changing
> ALL the recommended parts
> involved because I would *NOT* want to have to do it again for a $30 or
> $50 or even a $100 part
> which I "figgered" was going to last another 60K miles and didn't.
>
> Make no mistake, this is a fairly significant job, and while it is neat to
> say "Yeah, I did it
> myself" it is not neat to say "I had to go in and do it again twice
> because I didn't change part X
> for $10 the first or second time."
>
> Do it right or don't do it - even if you are doing it for fun, what's your
> time worth?
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Mike Arman
> 90V8Q, still needs a buyer!
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