kia rio 2006 xhanging timing belt

[boxley]

car has 60k miles. Local shops wanted $400 to do the work. Im cheap so bought a subscription on alldata, bought a $30 tool kit from big lots as I havnt done any repair work in 5 years and the kds have lost most of my tools.
Alldata is close but the descriptions dont match the car, why I am posting here on a few things that were not clear in the online manual
needed 2 jacks and 2 jackstands I prefer floor jacks and still had them in the shed
torque wrench
tools assorted

remove right side tire and wheel.
remove alll of the crap plastic shields from under the front of the motor
place second jack with a piece of 2x4 under the center of the motor
above the right wheel well is a motor mount, has 2 studs and a bolt on one side and another larger stud further back that covers the center of the front of the motor
remove
loosen power steerring motor remove belt
now the alternator has a strange looking method of tensioning the belt. Rather a good design now that I figured it out. Unfortunately I removed the pinning bolt which too an hour to put back at the end so here is a better way
from underneath loosen slightly the bolt pinning the alternator at the motor. Loosen "slightly" the alternator bolt attached to the strange looking long bolt that is not attached to anything.
loosen the long bolt to nowhere, this releases tension on the alternator belt and allow easy removal of the belt.
the AC belt is next, loosen the center bolt of the tensioner then a sqare ended bolt to the left of the tensioner is moved counter clockwise, this releases tension on the ac belt.
the rest is straight by the book however when you have to remove the crank pulley, it is on there with 145 lbs of torque and you are not supposed to allow the engine to be cranked counter clockwise (direction to remove the bolt) at this point I put the motor mount removed at the beginning back on as it is just adjacent to the cam sprocket. Put a socket on the cam sproket and jammed the ratchet against the motor mount. This allowed me to take the crank pulley bolt out without moving the motor.
this method doesnt work of course for torqing the bolt back in as all that does is loosen the cam sprocket bolt. For that I had help using an axe handle to brace the pulley to torque the crank pulley bolt.

All in all not 2 bad but not enough room to work in, everthig is very tight and it takes a lot of patience.
thanx,
bill

[RDNK4RE]

Hypothetical question, if you had the $400-600 would you pay to have it done or still do it yourself? This is the decision I am wrestling with myself. I have the tools including pneumatics but I lack time and occasionally I would rather pay to save myself the headaches. I had a ball joint changed on my F150 since I knew it would be a serious pain. The technician was cursing, throwing tools etc while I took a nap. I considered that worth the money since I knew it was going to be a problem and I didn't need the frustration.

How would you rate the job?

[Obione1975]

There is a how-to right above these threads on how to change the timing belt on the new rio engines.

[boxley]

I will continue to do it myself, for reasons I wont go into, the kia shop mechanics I have seen are lazy and irresponsible. The warranty is off of my car even tho I am the original owner, so from now on I do ALL of the work, need the car to last a long time. Fingers were scratched up but I will do it again

[RDNK4RE]

Originally Posted by boxley

I will continue to do it myself, for reasons I wont go into, the kia shop mechanics I have seen are lazy and irresponsible. The warranty is off of my car even tho I am the original owner, so from now on I do ALL of the work, need the car to last a long time. Fingers were scratched up but I will do it again

I know what you mean, I don't trust anybody with my car. I've been told I tend to hover if I'm not doing the work myself. More like watch/pace, watch somemore and then go back to pacing all while getting in the way and generally driving them crazy. I call it supervision. .

If I had someone I could actually count on I would probably go ahead and pay them. I spent $1500 getting the brakes re-done on my bug a couple years ago and I still say it was worth it, even though I spent probably 5 times what I could have done it myself for. It took a VW specialist with 40 years of experience 3 full 8 hour days to straighten them out. That would be all summer of weekends for me.