hzt30

I have done timing belt jobs on several engines; the worst was on a 2002 ES300. The crank bolt was on so tight that I used the starter blip method, however, it took several tries before the beast gave up.

Safetybob

Thanks for the words of wisdom BDSL. Do you have a good place to go to look for the shop manual? I would love to have a full copy of that.


Bob

BDSL

What year is your ES? PM me your email address.

Safetybob

2006 ES330 and PM on the way.


Bob

JetsonES

Safetybob, I highly recommend pulling the engine cover there are a lot of hoses under there that get brittle and pop off over time. I am slowly replacing mine one at a time, car is at 135k. I also like to zip tie the ends, not really a necessity unless your car is boosted but cheap insurance in my eyes.

speedkar9

I was able to remove the water-pump from my 3MZ-FE ES330 and my 1MZ-FE Solara without touching the studs. You just have to unbolt timing belt cover #3 and slide it out of the way.

Here's the timing belt procedure:


As long as you're able to knock the crank pulley loose, the rest can be done very easily with hand tools. The 3MZ differs slightly with the tensioner bolting in from the side, making you have to unbolt and swing the little power steering bracket out of the way to remove.

Spark plugs on the other hand require the removal of the intake plenum, and don't have to be changed with the timing belt. Its not hard, the trickiest part is that 14mm bolt right in front of the firewall:

Safetybob

Speedkar9, thank you for the timing belt video and most importantly, the difference that the ES330 motor has. Sorry I don't know my cars exact motor series. In some aspects, this looks a lot easier than my 4 banger Hondas I normally have to do (and dread), but nice to see that they didn't make it that easy with that seal towards the back of the engine compartment. I also liked your method of marking the belt. With Honda's we have marks and dots all over the camshaft so you don't mess up, but it does take awhile to get them all arranged, your method would have saved me hours the first time I did one of my accords with the counter rotating balance shafts.......


Two questions though: Where did you get that camshaft holder device and did the pin you took out of the tensioner......did that come in the kit from Rock Auto?


Bob

BDSL

Emailed you a few hours ago. Good luck.

speedkar9

Glad you found the video useful. The timing belt portion of this job is quite simple, its just the seals that take up the time and are a pain.

The camshaft holding tool I got from Princess Auto (Canadian equivalent of Harbour Freight) and the pin comes in the tensioner from RockAuto.

plovell

There was a recall on the 05/ES330 to re-install the crank pulley. See if you car qualifies.
If so, you could have the timing belt replaced at the same time. I did this and saved a couple of hundred bucks.

JetsonES

Speedkar9, you are a badass, thank you for the videos.

speedkar9

You had the dealer perform the crank pulley recall and replace the timing belt at the same time? Did they back-charge Lexus for the labor of removing the crank pulley?

I took my car in a few years ago and they said I didn't need a new harmonic balancer.

Thanks

KLF

How did you verify that the crank bolt has the 162 ft-lbs of torque on it?

JetsonES

I would use a torque wrench, they can be had cheaply at harbor freight and I had a friend in metrology test it, he said it was pretty much on point for accuracy. The key is to unload the spring when you store it to preserve the accuracy.

KLF

My torque question was for speedkar9, as I saw in his video how he just rattled the bolt on with his impact gun and called it good. I would not just do this, I have a good friend that did this on the 3.4L V6 in his T100, and a couple of days later the bolt fell out on the highway, the balancer fell off, took out a bunch of other parts (fan, shroud, all the engine belts) and damaged the end of the crank. It left him stranded on the highway in the middle of the night.

You really need a tool to hold the balancer after you reinstall it, then use a proper torque wrench to set it tight.