For those of you who neglect your "routine" maintenance of changing your timing belt every 100 000 km. I have potentially good news, mine failed and there was no damage to the valves or anything... other than the belt.

My timing belt failed while I was driving, and i was worried that it may have bent a valve or something, but as it made no noise when it failed I figured I was safe, and when I turned the engine by hand it didn't make any crunch/grind noises.
My cam was already at Top Dead Center (half a tooth off) when I checked it's marks (12:00 and 3:00)... maybe that helped?

I had no idea I was supposed to change the belt every 100 000km!!
I do now.

My belt was still on the timing gears but the teeth on the belt were fragile and some ripped off. All the teeth on the belt around my crank pulley were off.

I just replaced the timing belt, it took me several hours to "create" an opening in the wheel-well adjacent to the waterpump/powersteering pulley (using a drill, prybar and a good hammer). After that the procedure was easy.

I did not have to remove the front right wheel.. though I tried... it was impossible to get off the hub!

The result was that I changed the belt (CDN $30 +tax at CarQuest) and the engine runs smooth with the same power.

Total time on project: 8hrs on my back in the drive way. Over 2 days as I had to order the belt in.

My car:

2001 Hyundai Accent 1.5 sohc
5 speed standard
power steering
NO AC
133 000 km
everything is in good working order other than my catalytic converter, which is 2years old, but the "honey comb" inside is broken up.

Congrats on your successful install. Good thing only a few teeth were lost so that your valves were ok.

What else should I replace when i do my timing belt. I was thinking of changing the water pump and gasket, and also replace the cam and crank seals. What else needs to be replaced at the same time?

it would be a good idea to replace the water pump and also the tensioner pulley when you change the belt. if the oil seals are not leaking leave them alone

Wow, all I can say is you are one lucky guy.

I just spent $1300 getting the head on my 1.5L rebuilt, all new valves, gaskets, refinish.

Same scenario, timing belt didn't break, but lost some teeth and skipped.

samething happened to me while driving. in the prosses of putting it back together. I have a????? is that how you align the cam timing marks is one at 12:00 and one at 3:00 because I've seen diagrams indicating that there should be a mark on the head for alignment ( even on the Hyundia shop site available on this forum) but there is no mark at all on my head, so I was curios if the 3:00& 12:00 position's are also a method for alignment. That also puts the knock-out pin and peep hole at 12:00 position which is indicated on all of the diagrams I've seen that are indicating there is a timing mark on the head, which in my case there is no mark on the head where they say it should be....and that's at 3:00.... where my cam gear mark is located now. do I have it in the right spot??????

This post has been edited by D9Dave: Aug 16 2008, 11:22 AM