Changing Timing belt without moving pully by cutting lower metal cover on FI 2000?

[Vkgallo]

Hi while I'm waiting for my CPU to be rebuilt on my 81 FI spider I am taking on the timing belt issue. It looks relatively simple and have all apart with most of the shields off. The problem is that my car has the origional lower metal shield behind the pully and that my pully will not come off. Last year I tried to put on a lightweight pully and was unsucessful getting it off. I went so far as to borrow a professional mechanics super powerful impact wrench and heat and sill no luck. Even removed radiator and grill so was able to do a straight shot with the imact wrench and no luck. The car has 67k miles and it looks like the tensioner was origional. Belt does not look too old but there was slack as the tensioner was never adjusted properly. When I removed tensioner bearing it disentergated in hand. Glat that happened when out of car!

I was told by someone at a parts place that you dont need to remove lower cover. My guess is that his and most cars have that removed alreday so you can. I was thinking of careful surgery to cut the cover to allow enough access to replace the belt. It looks like if I remove timing marker by crank and cut along the bend of the shield it will give me access. Rest should be able to be bent out of way. Has anyone ever done anything like this before?

[bobplyler]

I didn't even know that was on there when I first tried to change my belt (in 1980). I got some
tin snips, pliers and assorted tools to pull it out.

[Vkgallo]

Bob, were you able to cut and pull it out completely or just cut enough away to get access?

Does anyone have a picture of the lower metal timing shield that is behind the crank pully? I think if I could see what one looks like removed it would help. Oddly I was unable to find a picture of one on google.
-Vince

[bobplyler]

I just cut enough to get access.

[Vkgallo]

Hi, I wanted to give an update. I was reading forums and saw that Auto Ricambi has a tech tip for taking off the crank nut using the starter. With it being so stuck that heat nor a professional impact wrench did anything last year, decided to try that before being forced to do surgery to the lower timebelt cover. It worked! However, I did not follow their instructions exactly. Their tech tip page says to lay a pry bar on the inner driver side fender. I did not think that was a good idea. Instead I used blocks of wood on the garage floor to support the end of pry bar. It worked and offered no risk to damage the sheet metal on the car.

[So Cal Mark]

if you applied heat to that pulley for removal I'd suggest replacing the front crank seal as it's now prone to leak

[Vkgallo]

OK, here is the long awaited update. Got new computer. Gas still leaks out of exhaust...Car still wont start..... Will start a new post.

[Vkgallo]

Turns out I had a short in my wiring harness to the FI system. I had so much gas going into cylinder 2 that it would not fire. Got a salvage harness and it runs good. I will be posting this to a few of my postings as a few items were caused by this.

[carl]

I have removed several timing belt shields from 2L motors. Undo all the little securing bolts you see and then attack with tin snips. It will all come off with enough effort and then you won't have to deal with the crank nut.