FYI, I finished replacing the timing belt & plugs maintenance this past weekend. thought I'd share some notes and observations.

Last time I did this at 110k miles, I changed out PS, Accessory, and timing belts all with Goodyear GatorBack belts. the PS & accessory belts were showing signs of cracking, but timing belt was in great shape. I did not change the hydraulic tensioner. When we removed the cover, the belt was very loose, but once we started to manually turn the motor over, it tightened up as it should have....not really sure why. Goodyear sold its belt business to Contiental, so I bought all continental belts. This time I replaced the tensioner and the tensioner arm/pulley. The old pulley was still in good shape...kept for emergency use.

We changed out the water pump this time. I was unsure if it was needed, but dad insisted. RockAuto stated Hitachi was the OEM manufacturer, so I bought one for about 85 bucks. Old pump was in excellent shape. Back story on coolant, I changed out the fluid at 5yr mark with Peak Global Lifetime coolant. Kept the old one as emergency use.

We changed out sparkplugs with direct replacements. while plugs were out, I scoped the holes to look at the pistons:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/6DAFvtgvgaSg397F2
Plugs also looked pretty good. First time we changed them, I saw blow-by on the plugs. This time, there was no blow-by at all. No buildup either.

We also changed out the water feed tube for the transmission as it had some bad rust on it. once off, I couldn't penetrate it with a screwdriver, but I cut it in half and did see that it did lose about half the metal wall. I did use almost 2.5-3 gal of mixed coolant to re-fill the engine and radiator

Didn't replace the power steering pulley, but there was some play in it...not too worried.

This engine is in great shape. will definitely hit 300k easily...shooting for 350k if the rest of the vehicle holds up.

 

Thanks for the news, especially the photos of the tops of the pistions!


I wish that one of our members would do this for the next generation V6. I'd really like to know if those depressions in the pistons are on our 2010. I suppose I could rent a scope, pull one of the front plugs and take a look for myself, but it would be much easier (for me) if someone else would do it.


Last year I bought every component, including pump, tensioner, pulleys, plugs and all gaskets. Our vehicle presently has 117,000 km (72,700 miles) on the OEM timing components. I'm going to wait until we hit say 140 or 150,000 miles before doing the job.



Thanks again. ccernst.

 

Boy! Times have changed. These tiny USB/Android-phone inspection cameras are very inexpensive:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-7mm-Len...QAAOSwj99aBRfG


And free international shipping, no less!