I am the proud owner of a 1988 Toyota Celica Alltrac.
A couple of months ago, it started smoking near the fanbelt and wouldn't want to idle. In fact, I was stranded at a Zippys restaurant one night and had to get a tow back home.
I immediately thought it was a seized waterpump as I assumed it was the most common point of failure near the fanbelt. I priced around for a pump but I couldn't afford a new pump at the time.
Well last week I decided that I had to get it running again. I was going to take off the waterpump and decide if there were other parts that needed changing while I was that deep into the motor. I had guessed it would be close to 6 or 700 dollars to replace everything. I was going to bring all of the parts to my nearby Checker autoparts store and verify that all the parts I was buying were similar to the parts I was removing.
I own 3 Toyota Celica repair manuals. None of them specifically for the Alltrac. I also took advice from the guide found here - http://mr2.com/ARTICLE/TimingBeltSW20.html. It is very detailed and it helped me alot.
One very good point of advice (which I did not follow) in the above guide was to remove the crank pulley bolt before even attempting to do any work. I have an impact gun so I was not worried. I had removed the inner fender lining anyway because I expected to eventually remove the pulley.
The pic on the right has my
breaker bar on the pulley bolt (19mm I believe).
The picture to the left shows the various parts that I removed. I removed the radiator reservoir tank, exhaust heat shield, alternator, engine hook, and the a/c compressor.
This picture shows the alternator area with the radiator reservoir removed. I learned the hard way that cars with tensioners for their fanbelts have a loosening screw.
Notice the rusted looking pulley type tensioner below the fanbelt. There is a bolt that needs to be loosened on it before you can crank the tensioner bolt. The tensioner bolt is to the right of the pulley and it is turned clockwise to loosen the fanbelt.
The picture to the right shows the motor with the alternator, lower radiator hose, and exhaust heat shields removed. You need to remove a lot of parts just to get to other parts on this car.
The picture above shows the water to air intercooler. To get to the sparkplugs, you need to remove the intercooler. To check TDC, it is suggested that you remove the plugs so that turning the motor is easier. For this side of the motor, I removed the air intake and piping, the intercooler, blow off valve, and the intercooler overflow.
On the timing belt side of the motor you see one of the motor mounts for the 3sgte. Yeah, the clearance is that fricken close. At this point, I looked at the mount, scratched my head, looked at it again, and tried looking for another way to swap the waterpump.
I decided that I would remove the A/C compressor to try and see if I could get to the motor mount from the right side of the motor. That's when I noticed that the pulley was totally frozen. I made some calls and my suspicion was confirmed. The pulley should freespin. I had found my problem.
I had to remove the engine hook and the bolts holding the compressor to the block. I "borrowed" a compressor from another celica. It didn't quite fit but it was a good temporary fix.
I got the motor back together and took the car for a test drive. The car felt really good. The compressor must have been dragging for a while because it felt like I had more power than before the car broke.
I would consider this project a "success" as I got the car running again. I did not get to the waterpump so the original intent was not completed but the waterpump wasn't the problem anyway. All I know is that if that waterpump goes, it will be a real pain to get to. That motor mount is scary looking to remove.
