I'm removing my cylinder head for a refresh/rebuild and I'm following the manual, but is it completely necessary to remove the timing belt entirely, or just remove the cams/gears from under it?

I haven't attempted to do ether yet so I thought I'd try to get some advice from someone who has done this before I try. A quick explaination would really be appreciated.

 

You can do it either way, the trick is getting the car back in time when you put it back together.

 

I set it at TDC. Will I need to do anything else to set the timing, if I replace everything just as I found it? Thanks for the quick reply

 

If you have a helms, it should have a step by step procedure to ensuring your putting the car back in time properly. Do you have adjustable cam gears or stock ones?

 

Cams/gears are stock. I looked through the reinstallation but thought the steps may be different if I remove the cams without removing the timing belt.

 

It should pretty much be the same if you left the belt on the crank pulley, or pulled it entirely.

 

No, it's not necessary to completely remove the timing belt. I assume you want to avoid pulling off the crank pulley and what not.

You can losen the timing belt tensioner and that should give you enough slack to pull the timing belt off the cam gears.

 

Excellent. Thanks guys. Putting it back together seems a much less daunting task now

 

it's really not that much harder to just go ahead and take it off.. and then you can guarantee you don't have the timing belt on the wrong way below..