So continuing the reassembly! Everything seemed to take
forever to do, mainly because basically every single part I took off the car was either filthy, corroded, rusty or generally looking worn. So I would wire wheel back each item and then treat/paint accordingly.
This started with me refitting the lifters, cam shafts and cam gears. Cam gears were cleaned and repainted. For anyone doing this - the cam shaft has a small "dowel" on the end mounting end of the shaft - this fits into one of three locations on the cam gear - for the intake side you put it so that it's on the "line" that points to the "I". On the exhaust, on the line that points to the "E".
I then also test fitted all the new coolant pipes.
The next job was putting the Cam belt on - I bought all new belts from Euro Car parts for an absolute steal! They're still on offer now - I got 60% off with their easter code, and the cam belt and each aux belt ended up costing me £6 each! This was a Continental cam belt too not some cheapo.
So fitting the cam belt, you ensure Cylinder 1 is at TDC - This should always be the case when the small notch on the crank gear (which in turns is in line with the pin in the crack shaft) is at 12oclock, or lined up with the small arrow on the case as shown here;
That's the crack aligned, now you need to line up the cam shafts. There are two ways to align these, firstly they should have the small timing mark next to the "I" on intake and the "E" on exhaust pointing directly upwards to 12oclock.
Secondly there are two "aligning" marks on the black cover that sits behind the cam gears. The timing marks next to the "E" on the intake and the "I" on the exhaust should be directly in line with those marks.
These can take some pressure to keep in place, so I found it easiest to put an adjustable spanner on each camshaft, and used that to turn the cams to the correct position, then I clamped them together using a small quick-grip to keep them in place while I put the belt on.
So personally I find the easiest way on the mx5 is to fit the belt around the bottom first, then keeping it tight I pull it around the exhaust camshaft then over the intake and down and tension it up. There should be
exactly 19 teeth between the two marks on the cams, and when under tension the intake cam should look like its leaning very slightly towards the exhaust cam.
So with the cam belt on and tensioned up, i did a couple of full revolutions of the engine using a 21mm socket and a long bar to turn it over 4 times, just to make sure everything was still in line and nothing hap slipped etc. All good, so I cleaned and popped the covers back on and test fit the other two belts.
