Reuse Timing Belt?

[joelittel]

I have a 1" timing belt that was on the car for 100 miles. Is it safe to reuse this belt?

[AriK]

I would.

[spiderdan]

I would too, unless the 100 miles was 20 years ago.

[Odoyle]

You're probably safe to reuse it, but my understanding is that when you set the tension upon installation, the belt stretches slightly, not sure what effect that might have at high rpms.

[DieselSpider]

You can re-use a timing belt if its not too old in miles and years however it has many of either then the safe bet is to replace it. The timing belt is not something to use a New Old Stock item on. Also if the belt has been contaminated with oil it should be replaced regardless of mileage or age.

[lglade]

I'd inspect it carefully and assuming I saw nothing of concern, then I'd reuse it. Like others have suggested, a belt has a finite life that can be measured in years and/or miles. When it achieves a milestone of 30,000 miles or three years, it should be replaced. If your belt is nearly new with only 100 miles, it should be fine.

[joelittel]

Thanks.

It is new, purchased during the winter, and was only used to break in my engine after a rebuild. Long story short, I had to take the engine apart recently so the belt had to come off before the engine was completely broken in.

[RRoller123]

Both Guy Croft and Csaba have recommended to me that as long as the engine has not been run, the belt can be installed, tensioned, the engine can be rotated by hand, the belt taken off/on, etc. a hundreds times with no consequence. But as soon as the car is driven for more than a very brief period, like startup and maybe a couple of miles (?) the belt should be replaced. NOW the qualifier, this was in reference to a standard belt, not the 1"wider one.

Pete

[v6spider]

What I'd do is turn it inside out and bend it check for cracks.. If it's cracked throw it away.

[joelittel]

It's not cracked.... but the reason I had to take if off the car in the first place was because I made an assumption, which turned out to be incorrect, and it has cost me much grief and time. It would be silly for me to make two BIG mistakes in one season.

That being said, I'm going to replace it and put this one in my "emergency kit" that lives in the trunk. If I'm ever in need of a "quick belt fix" at least I'll have this one.

[wizard124]

I think you should fess up to the mistake you made and enlighten us.
It would surely save someone alot of grief

[joelittel]

I built up a high compression 2L and with it I put in a new to me crank. The problem was that I assumed the bearing clearance was within the acceptable tolerance. I used my micrometer to measure the journals, a few times each, but I never plastigauged the bearings because my micrometer measurements seemed to be within spec. Big mistake.

I now know that my Home Depot digital micrometer is not accurate enough for such precise measurements. When I finally did plasitgauge my clearance it was .003" or greater on all five journals.

Long story short, I was tuning the engine in my garage one weekend and the low oil pressure light went on. By the following weekend I was able to confirm that I had low to no oil pressure so the whole engine had to come back out.

Luckily for me the engine was only idling for a few minutes in this condition, so minimal damage was done.