Re: belt vs. chain (archive)

On a M20 323i engine the vavle clearances
are 0.5mm for both inlet and exhaust.
Not sure what that is in thou/inches. 0.026 ???
Do this when the engines warm.

The timing belt is pretty straight forward
but you will need to take out the radiator
to give you some room.

The hardest part is the main harmonic balancer
on the front of the crank, basically it needs
to be tightened to an amazing high tourque setting
which my tourque rench would never dream of reaching. I had to borrow a friends one that he
uses on trucks! and even then I needed to put a pipe
over the end of it to give me more leverage.

I can supply more info, just let us know.

If this is a US 320i (i.e., 4-cyl M10 engine) there is no timing belt....these engines have timing chains.

Only the 320/6 or 323i (both European gray market vehicles) had timing belts.

I'm planning on adjusting my vales in the next few days and also replacing the timing belt. Can anyone give me info on how exactly to do this? Does the motor need to be cold in order to adjust the valves? If so, what are the clearance specs? anything to look out for? Also, is replacing the timing belt hard? what will I have to remove in order to do this?

Thanks, Jared

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