Timing belt markings

[madbilly]

Hi everyone,

At the weekend the plan was to change the timing belt, water pump, etc, but in the end I had plenty to do so satisfied myself by "just" removing the upper belt cover and checking the condition and tension (who the flipping heck decided to put that bolt in the middle of the cover behind the engine mounting?!) and it looked in great nick, good tension.

BUT I don't know how long it's been on there, and so I do plan to change it when I have more time. I wondered if the belt markings might give me any clue as to how old it is. There are two main sets:
- The first I'm certain is the make, model no, belt type etc "DAYCO 159 SHP PLUS 254 H ISORAN (R) 159 RHP PLUS 254 H 94197"
- The second I suspect might be a batch number, as it reads "06 134041" along one edge of the belt, and then repeated below a few times until "06 134045" along the other edge of the belt. I should have taken pictures but anyway...does anyone know what it means? 06=2006 perhaps?

Cheers,
Will

[Gary1958]

I have a brand new belt from Chris Neil made by Quinton Hazel and this has the following numbers on it:

QTB277 159x1

HSN HTS 027145 ODF

So no obvious dates on it and the first part of the reference-159 is the number of "Teeth" on the belt and 1 is the 1" width

I guess the best plan of action is to change it as soon as you can.

[madbilly]

Well it looks in really good nick so it seems crazy to change it unnecessarily. A job for the winter I think.

FYI the belt I got as a replacement is a Beck/Arnley so I can't compare the numbers.

[HJ2]

It's not just the matter of the age of the belt, but also tensioner and guide & waterpump, as they are all on the same belt
History of mine was unknown, so i changed it right away, just as an insurance.

[madbilly]

Just spoke to Andy Walters from Dayco Europe about the timing belt markings, very useful.

"DAYCO 159 SHP PLUS 254 H ISORAN (R) 159 RHP PLUS 254 H 94197"

Is the model identifier.

"06 134041" along one edge of the belt, and then repeated below a few times until "06 134045"

In other words:

06 134041
06 134042
06 134043
06 134044
06 134045

Is the important bit. The first two digits are the year of manufacture, followed by two digits for the week then a digit for the day of the week, then there are three digits indicating the position on the production mould. So in my case the belt was made on the 4th day of the 13th week of 2006.

They recommend NOT fitting any belt that is more than ten years old. However, if a belt is fitted before the belt is ten years old then the manufacturer's service interval still holds, in the case of the Elan 5 years (60 months) or 60000 miles, whichever comes first.

So, my belt is about 6 years old, but I don't know when it was fitted. I have an odd situation in that the previous owner, since 2004, told me he'd never had the timing belt changed, so the facts don't really add up. However there could always be things the previous owner didn't want to tell me for various reasons which could entail a timing belt change.

Given the belt looks in good condition (no I couldn't see any imperfections at all) then I think I can wait until winter.

And for everyone's info, I think the Dayco 94197 can be got from Camskill for a good price, probably cheaper than importing it from Rock-Auto. They also do the drive belts, but I don't think they do the pulleys or water pump.

[tigerdog]

That's a bit of brilliant research and worthy of a wiki thread or at least some other way of finding it again in a year or five when I try to remember it.

[madbilly]

Now I've got wiki editting access I will put it on there, just leaving it a while to make sure enough people have time to tell me I'm talking rubbish first!

[madbilly]

Now added to the wiki. Let me know if I've made a cock up.