Getting ready to do a timing belt on a 2000 ES

[Satan]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(pinoyesv6)</div><div class='quotemain'>you might think mitsu's quality sucks but, if you do a side by side comparison of mitsu oem parts and their oem replacement from the auto parts store, 9 times out of 10, the part made by mitsu will be of better quality.</div>

Still.... I think everyone's got the impression that OEM is much better than parts from non-OEM sources. That's a fallacy... While the quality is there on some parts, it's not always the case. I think the premium Goodyear and Gates timing belts are of good quality. It has been my experience with my Supras anyways... and they take a beating and cost less.

I am not impressed with a few of my Galant's problems either. Mostly in the quality of things you would expect to hold up, like the paint, glovebox lock, and gas tank lid/cover. Things that you would expect to last the life of many other cars, but after only a few years are needing to be fixed on the Galants.

Auto parts stores do carry some cheaper items that I would not use, but for the most part, I've been able to rely on parts from suppliers with good reputations (Goodyear, Gates, Bosch, etc, etc).

[BigJack]

Ok lets get beyond the low quality of Mitsubishi. Anyway is there another belt that needs to be replaced along with the timing belt? I went to buy one and the parts guy said a balance shaft belt was listed but he had no idea what it was.

[Satan]

There are 2 belts... the timing belt and the balance shaft belt. I found them both at Autozone and O'Reilly's... Autozon would have to order the balance shanft one and O'Reilly's had them both in stock. Pricing was close, but I think O'Reilly's had them cheaper (Gates and Goodyear).

The dealership had the balance shaft one as well, but they were alot further from me than the parts stores.

Before removing the belt from the balance shaft, be sure to mark it VERY well... The gear/shaft kinda spins independently and can be misaligned easily. I ended up getting it messed up... So, I then removed the bolt that goes into the side of the block (underneather the exhaust manifold) and putting a screwdriver thru the hole.... This ensured that the position of the weight/lobe (wheatever that is) was in the correct spot and not on the top part of the shaft.