Quote:
Originally Posted by TracerZX2
Maybe It is just Missouri weather, but timing belt fail is extremely common here. It is one of the largest causes of death for SOHC ford engines around here. Fortunately the zetecs I run are non-interferance, even though the manufacturer says otherwise. Typical ZX2 belt fail is between 80k and 130k.
Respects
Tracy
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Which Ford SOHC engines are you referring to? I'm not up to date on the newer models of Ford engines, but all SOHC 1.9L and 2.0L Escort engines were non interference engines. I think the only interference engine that was ever put in any of the Escorts was the 1.6L in the early Escort models. Many publications say the Escort engines are interference and many mechanics misinform customers of this, but I know first hand they are non interference. I do my own timing belt/water pump changes on my Escorts at 100K mile intervals, but I've had two timing belts break on it in 518,700 miles and both times just had it towed home, put a new belt/water pump on it and fired it up. The first one must have been a faulty belt, because it hadn't been on the car long when it failed. When the other one broke it was due to the bearing in the water pump seizing when the belt had about 95K miles on it. If my engines were interference type I'd change the timing belt/water pump/tensioner every 75K miles just to be on the safe side. If I wanted to only change the timing belt on the '88 I could do it in 1-2 hours, could probably do it in less than an hour if I really wanted to work hard. I can do the water pump/timing belt in about 3-4 hours. I also just changed the water pump/timing belt in my '94 and '02 Escorts last summer which probably took about 5-6 hours.
When you inspect your timing belt be sure to look on the back side of the belt where the teeth are made into the belt. Many times the front of the belt will look just like new, but if you look at the back side near where the teeth are made into it if the belt is old or getting in poor condition there will be cracks in this area and more likely to strip teeth off anytime. I've actually never had a timing belt brake, instead they stripped teeth off.