[immortal_suby]

Did my timing belt and front main seal today in 2 and a half hours - from beginning tear down to having the car running. This was my first time.

I'm elated to say the least. I can't believe I've been scared to try this for so long. It was pretty easy using the threads here, ryan mcdonalds how-to, and the service manuals.

The only roadblock I hit was the tensioner. I dont have a vise, and my c-clamp is only 4" - you need at least a 5" c-clamp to fit on there. I ended up using a very unorthodox method to push in the tensioner. I put it on my floor jack underneath the front of the car and jacked up the car with it to compress it. It was ugly and dangerous, but it worked.

I was doing it alone so to get the timing belt on and stay in place on the sprockets I put it on each one and used a vise grip on each to hold it on there lined up while I installed the idler pulleys.

I had the cam seals, but it was dry under each of them so I skipped that.

The timing belt was last done 110k miles ago but it looked brand new.

Huge thanks to everyone here who has posted hints on this job. I did alot of searching here and got alot of good information to help get this job done.