Has anyone on here changed the cambelt/waterpump/tensioner themselves,or could point me in the right direction for some kind of visual guide?

Will be buying an octavia vrs in the next couple of months but only wanting to spend 3-5 thousand so accept will probably be looking at a higher milage example which i would prefer to service myself.

Any info gratefully received.

Hows your experiance and tools?

Not a job to be taken lightly taking into account what can go wrong.

I have done many, but I work in a dealer.

The Haynes Manual for the Octavia covers how to do the job and rates it as fairly difficult. The Skoda dealer where I had mine done took far longer than their original estimate of 3 hours even with all the correct tools and the necessary expertise.

For me peace of mind best get it to skoda garage who really know their stuffs changin timing belt etc.. i had my vrs timing, waterpump,tension changed by skoda garage for £320 with 2 year warranty if either of them fail !

Again if you do it your self and maybe few month time summit happen then you would fork out grand or more for vrs engine.

I hear you with regard to only having yourself to blame if it all goes wrong.I have done cambelt changes in the past although not on this engine,i have a good selection of hammers:D Was wondering if there are any aspects of the belt change that are unusual or especially difficult,if its covered in a Haynes manual i will buy one and deceide if its within my capabilities then.

Two words..Timing & Tensioning. Get those 100% right and you are OK.

Do you have cam locking tools? tensioning gauge (essential on the Alfa , not sure about an Octy) As an Alfa V6 24valve owner I leave the T belt to my Alfa specialists. Its like many jobs, if you are trained and doing it all the time then you just 'know' what to do. If you are doing it once, or now and again, then its a bit more hit and miss. Personally I'd rather those pistons miss those valves so this is one job I leave to the professionals.

Personally I'd rather have a car with a cam chain, but thats another story.

Alfie 168

There isnt any locking tool for the 1.8T, in this lies the problem as you have to be very careful. More often than not you have to time it up wrong so it ends up right when the automatic tensioner is set. Its very easy to get the camshaft out one tooth and then you get engine management faults.

This was a fellow Briskoda members car. He had a cambelt done at a dealer and then had problems afterwards. It flagged up a cambelt and crankshaft corrolation fault and they messed about with it for ages changing sensors etc. I had a look at it for him as he is local to me, yep cambelt one tooth out.

Also the mounting is a pain as it cant be removed, you have to work around it. The tensioner damper needs to be compressed during changing the belt. This required either the tool (basically an M5 bolt) or what I do is remove the damper and compress it in a vice.

You also need a safe method of supporting the engine whilst the mounting is off.

Thanks for the replys,very helpful,i think i would have been upset at paying for the work to be done then ending up at the situation above.

So basically the belt is tensioned by its own tensioner not the waterpump so belt tension is not my main worry but obviously timing which can be checked and rechecked before engine starting.

Thanks for your help.

The water pump is fixed. The tensioner has a seperate damper below it which applies the tension to the belt.

Timing marks are on the bottom pulley and flywheel and the camshaft shown above.

The problem with the timing is the car will run with the above fault, but sometimes it isnt always obvious straight away. Then you have to strip it all down again. Remember to change the two 18mm bolts in the engine to body mounting and more importantly the three 16mm bolts that secure the secondary mounting to the engine. We quoted a customer on a cambelt change last week. He decided it was too expensive so took it elsewhere. It come back a few days later having had the cambelt done but with a knocking noise. There was one of the three bolts left in the mounting and the engine was sat at 45 degrees in the engine bay about to fall out. Then he took offence when we gave him a quote for repairing it and thought we should have done it FOC.

Lummox,cheers for taking the time:thumbup: Please look out for my post in the future asking for help when my engine falls out etc:D

Of course when i actually buy an octavia and i'm faced with doing the job outside in the rain and not just talking about it from the comfort of my house i might bite the bullet and pay a pro to do the work,then i'll polish the engine cover or something.

Cheers Paul.

Haynes manual says that the engine may need to lifted when fitting the belt, is this true?

Yes as the engine mounting needs to be undone but cant physically be removed.

Yes as the engine mounting needs to be undone but cant physically be removed.

i remove them :P also i have done hundreds (like you) and have never never changed a single bolt in my life and have never had a prob (not saying it's the correct procedure and all that).

Yes as the engine mounting needs to be undone but cant physically be removed.

I had no problems removing the engine mounting. You just lower the engine as low as it will go and the mounting can be removed. I did also remove the pipe from turbo to pancake pipe but I'm not sure you have to. Then you can install the roller, tensioner, water pump and belt quite easily just don't put the water pump bolts in yet! You need to be able to rotate the pump ccw so that you can get the mounting back in. After the mounting is there just rotate the pump back and tighten the bolts. Easy!

Yes as the engine mounting needs to be undone but cant physically be removed.

yeap it can lol

i've done my belt twice, last one took me 3 hrs on the floor, the mounts a propper pain to get out but it will come out.

any chance of a diy guide on this for those who haven't undertaken a cambelt change on these models before?

i did my cambelt this weekend and it was an easy job really

the secret to changing cambelts is take your time when stripping down and make sure you pay attention to the timing marks

i normally mark it all with a white marker on strip down

the when its all back together turn it over by hand a few revolutions and make sure nothing is hitting then you know even if you start it up and the engine is timmed wrong it wont damage anything it will just run like a bag of ****e

I did cambelt on mine when i got it, if your handy with a spanner then there not to bad to do, engine mount is a pain to work round but can be done,

As said above check and double check timing marks and turn over by hand before starting

Has anyone on here changed the cambelt/waterpump/tensioner themselves,or could point me in the right direction for some kind of visual guide?

Will be buying an octavia vrs in the next couple of months but only wanting to spend 3-5 thousand so accept will probably be looking at a higher milage example which i would prefer to service myself.

Any info gratefully received.

If you are competent with spanners, get a haynes manual and follow that

You dont need a lift for the engine, I just cut a "V" into some 4x2" timber to go around the sump and use a trolley jack to take the weight.

The belt is auto tensioned by the tensioner (of course lol) so no need to worry about getting the tension right.

Take care when removing the water pump, make sure you draw it out square to the block otherwise you may break the impellor, and then have to try and fish all the bits out of the engine block.

Make sure you replace the engine mounting stretch bolts (I went OTT and replaced all seven bolts lol), below is a pic of the bolts, the three on the right of the pic are stretch bolts ie the shank dia is 1mm less than the threaded section.

HTH

Bill.