My 2007 has done 82000 miles but as it is now 10 years old I thought I had better change the cam belt (LR say 150,000 miles or 10 years). I have changed many cam belts in my time but this must be the worst ever - what a faff! It is not technically difficult but the number of bits you have to take off and the access issues make it, in my book, the job from hell! The worst bit is getting the flywheel locking tool and the crank positioning tool in place. Immovable pipes and cables strategically placed so you can't see what you are doing. Anyway, enough of the rant and a couple of tips.

Firstly, because the starter is such a pig to get out I suggest replacing the solenoid contacts. These are cheap enough and are always the part that goes.

Secondly - what parts to use? Some people will only use genuine LR parts but I decided to use a Gates Powergrip kit. Gates have a good reputation so it seemed fine by me and somewhat cheaper that LR prices. So when I eventually got the old belt out (as fitted by LR in the factory) surprise, surprise it is a Gates Powergrip belt. You pays your money and takes your choice.

Having wielded enough spanners for this year I can now return to the comparative leisure of building my model railway!  John
07 HSE Narvick Black
Land Rover Series One
Triumph Rocket 111 (sadly gone!)

Just seen Joe's post on this topic. Seems he had a better time that me...... probably a better mechanic! John
07 HSE Narvick Black
Land Rover Series One
Triumph Rocket 111 (sadly gone!)

Good tip about doing the starter while off.  FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

I really thought the starter was nice and easy to remove. I have certainly had a worse experience removing starter motors that's for sure.

Getting the timing pins correctly located was a bit of a faff tho. I was looking for it for a good bit before removing the small plastic plate.

I also removed all bolts from the engine mount not paying enough attention to realise it held one of the idler in place and the belt tension was released before the cam locking pin was in!

Apart from that it wasn't the worst timing belt change I've ever done.

How did you find the belts looked? Mines had done around 105k (miles) and was done a year premature on the grounds that I thought the consent of a timing belt being on for 10 years and 150k crazy to say the least! The belt itself looked in decent enough condition and the bearings weren't to shabby either.

My belt looked pretty well knackered even though it had only done 82K. Somewhat thin and the edges starting to fray. The idler and tensioner bearings seemed fine. Interesting to see that the tensioner bearing as fitted by LR from new proudly bears the inscription "China"

Good point about the plastic plate. I just don't see why it needed such a big bolt to hold it in when everything else plastic is held with 6mm bolts. John
07 HSE Narvick Black
Land Rover Series One
Triumph Rocket 111 (sadly gone!)

Perhaps mines had been done previous for some other reason. Never really looked through the history to be honest.

Yeh the whole world we live in has been manufactured in China, it's only where it was assembled that changes.

made in china I saw a picture in a motoring mag of Chinese "ewoks" well they looked like ewoks they cost around £18k!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  gone
P38 v8 auto no problems,great howle from exhausts when giving it welly
Td5 auto head gasket,no5 pot not uncommon but good car.
1st Tdv6s manual epb problem fixed under warranty(stealer said"never heard of this before,i suggested he looked at d3 forum.
2nd Tdv6 se auto epb
3rd Tdv6 xs auto 2008,swmbo,s favourite.

the plastic plate?

I was thinking about changing mine at 150kms (in a few months). Should I give it a go or farm out the work? Where would I get the locking pins from?

I'm reasonable handy but if the cost of letting a garage do it isn't over odds, I'll do that

g

Just carried out a belt change on mine. Found it an easy one to do as there was plenty of room to get at everything. Bought everything for the job on Ebay and spent a total of £186 on parts. These included a Gates belt,tensioner and waterpump kit, Gates auxilary belt, Gates auxilary belt idler and 5ltrs of Genuine Land Rover longlife coolant. Price also included buying the locking pin kit. (Buy the locking pin kit for a Peugeot 2.2 engine as it is almost helf the price of the Freelander kit and is the same one) The plastic plate mentioned hides below and behind the starter and needs removed so that the timing pin can be inserted into the hole in the flywheel. It`s not the easiest thing to find!

I recently changed my belts as I was unsure of them being done, also used gates kit nice to see it as the metal propeller in the water pump, the one I took off was plastic and tensioner also made in China.

Starter motor was easy to remove as was the plastic cover, I did purchase a new one as I had read that the cover can be brittle and break on removing, also used a new auxiliary gates belt.

Timing tool I purchased from a member on here at half price, took some time to find the hole for the pin as is was covered in a bit of muck etc, once found no problem, a few photo below of the items used.

Forte Lubricants are now selling an engine oil flush specially formulated for maintaining and cleaning timing belt in oil engines. Does the Freelander has the timing belt in oil as per other PSA engines?

The Freelander belt is the old dry type that most people will be familiar with. It is the type of belt that can fail if it gets contaminated with oil.

I never knew that. In that caseI wouldn't go beyond 100k/10 years before changing it.

[quote="Arctic"]I recently changed my belts as I was unsure of them being done, also used gates kit nice to see it as the metal propeller in the water pump, the one I took off was plastic and tensioner also made in China.

just got a gates kit and its got a water pump with a plastic propeller which gates says its better because if the bearing
goes on the pump and wobbles out of line the propeller hits the metal insides and just breaks up and the belt keeps
turning but a metal propeller will or could just lock up and rip the belt off and damage will be worse so I am glad my new
pump has a plastic one.

If the bearings fail to that extent on a water pump it would throw the belt anyway so end result would be the same for whatever the impeller was made of!