Hello everybody. I have just bought myself a Mitsubishi GTO as it was my childhood dream. I enjoy doing mechanical repairs myself as it creates a greater Bond between me and my babies.
So I found this red GTO it was not in great condition well at least it didn’t look that way still doesn’t for now. The paintwork needs some shoulder grease put into it which I’m not too worried about I am more concerned about the engine bay. The car drives like a dream despite four holes in the exhaust and God knows what else. I have done the service ie change oil filter fuel fuel filter spark plugs etc. Then I noticed there was mud where the coolant should be b so I flushed it and refilled. I then flushed the engine and change the oil and oil filter again. The difference was amazing. I want your advice on the condition of the timing belt. It is definitely something I am going to change but shall I be driving it the way it is until the change which is probably about a month.
This is a very debatable issue. The manufacturer guarantees the belt for 60,000 miles. That does not mean that it will disintegrate at 60k miles. I have seen many cars with over 140k miles that still have the original belt in good looking condition but I have also seen others that look quite poor at 50k. There are other factors that you need to take into account like has the car been standing for a long period, has the water pump been leaking, is there rust or oil on the pulleys and do you run your car in a dusty environment. When I zoom in on your pictures, I can see all sorts of crap on the top cam pulleys which indicates that even if your belt was perfect, you still need to remove it and take care of the muck issues. Given that cam belts are cheap, you would be foolish to remove an unknown belt and not replace it. You can buy the full kit very cheaply in the joes gems section and save a lot of worry. The cam belt video will be available very soon.
