Having done the timing belt 2 or 3 times now (on the same engine!) here are some tips;



Hydraulic tensioner

Different to the 1.5 and 1.8 engines which have a spring tensioner. This is a sealed unit which expands as the belt wears, the unit is said to need replacing when doing a timing belt. However the Mazda manual says you can compress the tensioner in a press and reuse it! Saving you £60 on a new one.




You can of course do it in a vice like I did. There may only be one set of holes, use a 0.8mm pin to secure the tensioner until you fit it back on.

How to fit the belt

Reset the tensioner like above. Torque the tensioner to the block to 25Nm. Align the marks on the cam shaft pulleys and the crank puley as shown.


Starting at the crank, pull and fit the belt around the idler, then the front cam pulley, then the top idler, then the rear cam pulley, then the tensioner. Doing it this way ensures you get the timing right on all 3 pulleys first time and any slack is taken by the tensioner. Crank it twice around by hand. Check alignment on the 3 pulleys before releasing the tensioner pin.

If you struggle fitting a new belt

2 Things which may help. Heat the belt up to make it more elastic. Remove the rear cam pulley and slot the bolt in and tighten down to 122Nm (you may need to lock the cam shaft with a thick bar through the pulley wheel.

Main pulley bolt is 150Nm so eat some weetabix!

wow you make it sound so easy!!!!

fancy showing me how its done on mine when it needs doing again

great info

That last diagram came in very useful
thank you

The belt is only difficult to check the pulleys are all aligned. Once you back the tensioner off it makes it a little easier and if you still struggle remove the rear cam pulley, wrap the belt around everything and pull the pulley upto the camshaft and bolt it down.

When doing timing belt, my instructions said to remove the top idler, now this made the belt fitting easier but you do have to rember there will be some slack between the top to camshafts so i made an allowance for this and set the right cam shaft 1-2 teeth out in clock wise direction so when the tensioner took up the slack the right cam pulled straight into alignment. a fairly straight forward job todo only bit thats a bit of a pain is the right side cam cover gets jammed at the bottom on the power steering hose to the pump so rember to losen of the bracket holding it in place and have a helping hand to gently pull the pipe out of the way. did not really need to use a locking kit as cams sit very still in there TDC position.

If anyone needs the cambelt done on there v6 give me a shout so i can take some pics this time and do a full guide

hey, so doing cambelt at the moment and its very hard to get on!! tried a few ways, just having break atm lol then will try heat up the belt.. so annoying not much room in there