1987 Nissan 300Z

[dboat]

One of my best friends up here has a 87 300z, original owner with less than 30k miles on it.. in fact most of the miles were driven the first couple of years with less than a few thousand miles on it the last decade. When getting it serviced, the dealership wanted him to change the timing belt. I do believe that these are not chains but belts.. however, the manual says to do this around 60k miles.. on the other hand, it is almost 20 years old.. this is not a job he will do himself and doesnt know if its worth the $$ to have this done. If the belt breaks then engine stops.. I dont think the valves will get hit by the pistons as they dont go that far down..

So what do the sage people of Talon think? replace or not replace? and why.

Dana

[L8 APEX]

Wesman is our resident advisor on Z's he has an expensive degree in the subject...:cool:

[dboat]

Wesman is our resident advisor on Z's he has an expensive degree in the subject...:cool:


Hey Wesman, where are ya?

[SILVER2000SVT]

I've had one of my hondas break a timing belt sitting in the drive way. It didn't cause any valve or motor damage, either because honda designed it well or I just got lucky. However, This is not the norm for most of the stories I've heard about breaking timing belts.

To answer your question, I would definitely change the old timing belt for the main reason that it's 20 years old. Age plays just as much factor in the breakdown of a rubber belt as does usage. You could even argue that its worse because the belt develops a memory from sitting in a static position and become less flexible in addition to becoming weaker with age, therefore when you do drive it you have an imminent danger of it failing.

[L8 APEX]

There are two kinds of engines interference and non-interference. I am not sure which that is. That describes if the valves hit the pistons or not when they rotate out of time.

[wesman]

Hey Wesman, where are ya?

Change voluntarily.....or unvoluntairly......the price obviously depends on the method chosen.

It's a mileage thing, but common sense would dictate that much like oil changes, it's one of those things that you don't wanna know the repurcusions of letting it go too long after the fact :throw:

--wes

[DamonH]

87 Z has an interference engine ... I'd change it.