![]() When in doubt, assume your engine is of the interference type, and change the timing belt at manufacturer recommend intervals. Nothing will happen, except for a stalled engine and an inconvenient tow home. ![]() My girlfriend's mother drives a '92 Volvo 740 powered by the " Aging Tortoise of The Automotive World" redblock engine, and can run her timing belt until it snaps. ![]() These are called "non-interference" engines. Most overhead cam engines like this are of the "interference" nature, however there are a minority of engines unaffected by timing belt breakage. Severe mechanical damage will occur at this point, destroying valves, pistons, and sometimes entire cylinder heads. If these suddenly stop spinning on a running engine, it's possible for a valve to remain open when the piston reaches the top of its stroke on one or more cylinders. In this application, the timing belt is responsible for rotating the two camshafts at the top of the cylinder head. In the above graphic, the camshafts, valves, spark plug, piston, connecting rod, and crankshaft are all visible for a single cylinder. These camshaft pulleys are what control the engine's valves to supply or exhaust the combustion chamber of its air/fuel mixture. Timing belts ride on the crankshaft and rotate the camshaft pulleys. But rather than driving trivial systems like A/C and power steering, the timing belt spins mission-critical components in perfect time, and can't miss a beat. Like the serpentine belt, the timing belt gets its rotation from the crankshaft's motion. The timing belt is the most important belt under the hood of your car, and here's why. A timing belt lasts until the day your engine stops running in a flurry of magnificent metal-on-metal noise. What makes a 5-cylinder engine sound so sweet? Which bear is best? How long does a timing belt last? These are questions only a mere fraction of humans know the answer to, except for one. Luckily, serpentine belts are easy to check and cheap to replace. Don't run an an engine with a broken serpentine belt for any longer than necessary - some engines have serpentine-driven water pumps, and an overheat condition would be imminent if the belt breaks. If this belt were to break while driving, I'm not trying to say it wouldn't be a major inconvenience, but you may be able to limp the vehicle to a safe place before you're dead in the water. When the large crankshaft pulley spins, everything else spins with it, activating each respective system. The Volvo engine pictured here utilizes a power steering pump on the top, an alternator in the middle, and A/C compressor on the bottom, with a tensioner pulley to keep the belt taut and from slipping. Serpentine belts piggyback off of the engine's crankshaft rotation to spin various accessories, sometimes called an accessory drive. Power steering, air conditioning, and even basic electrical systems couldn't have been possible without the serpentine belt. Automobiles use a growing number of hydraulic and electrical systems to provide us all of the creature comforts we know and love.
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