AceFrehley03

I got her all back together, and it runs and sounds great! EDIT: Belt screeching was fixed by tightening the belts to a level only described as "balls tight." Thanks again everyone.

Where is the dimple located at on the block that you are supposed to line up with the crank pulley? I see the one on the crank pulley but can't find anything to line it up with. EDIT: Sorry, epic brain fart. Been a long night. So am I supposed to line up the indentation on the first dimple of the timing belt?

God, that was a thing of beauty. And I still have all ten fingers! Thanks man!

I'm going to disconnect the coil to be safe . Here goes nothing, will post results soon! Wish me luck.

Alright, I'm stuck on the crank pulley. I have a strap wrench on it, locked on the frame of the truck and I still can't get the damn thing off. I am considering locking a breaker bar on the frame rail and burping the starter to make the engine do the work for me. How risky is this? Any chance of damaging the starter or any other internals?

My Nissan dealer wanted (IIRC) $80 for the belt, whereas the gates I bought was $33. Gates has a good enough reputation to where I'm not going to sweat it immensely. I hope... Anyway, update. Got the truck in the garage, front end torn down to the point of breaking that crank pulley off. After that, the cover can come off and the belt should be ready to swap! Will continue this project tomorrow, ran out of daylight and energy for today. I will keep everyone posted. Thanks all.

Wow, quick replies. Thanks everyone. I already rounded up the parts, I went Gates on all of the belts as I've had good luck with them in the past and they are pretty well trusted. I am going to replace the timing belt tensioner, I was wondering about the actual idler pulley on the front of the engine. I will replace the water pump and thermostat while I'm in there. What does everyone run temp wise? Mine sees daily driving, probably 180/185 degrees. I didn't know about the Nissan contacts through here, but at my local stealership/dealership it was over five times the cost, with no exaggeration. Any safe way to verify that your cam timing is correct while its still apart? Are you talking about popping it off briefly to see if it fires? I could only imagine how messy that may be. Thanks again, all.

Hey all, I've been lurking for a little while but it feels about time that I actually say something. My wife has a '99 QX4 with 118K on the clock (still cherry, though) which is officially in need of a complete set of belts. I was going to go through and replace the timing belt (with a new tensioner,) a/c belt, power steering belt, and fan/alternator belt, thermostat since I'll be in there and probably the cam seals as well. I was wondering about the idler pulley, should I replace that while I'm in there as well? It looks like it'll be a bear to get out on its own should it fail some other time. Do these go T.U. often? Also, anybody have any experience with Gates belts? Thanks for the help! -Scott