Whilst my engine was a new crate engine it was actually built in 2004 so the cambelt was 12.5 years old with only 3.5 years and ~12,000 miles. After a discussion at the last WSCC Dorset meeting about preparing the cars for the European Tour I got a call from Malcolm who had bought a couple of Gates belts for £25 each and changed them on Chris' and his own car and offered to change both Colin's and mine before we left. I'd already bought a full kit with pulleys and a water pump and had all the necessary tools but my cams weren't at the standard Ford settings after the 'swing' at Northampton Motorsports so I'd delayed fitting it until I'd worked out how to retain the offset.
Malcolm and Dale offered to help me work out a method and we agreed for them to come over on Tuesday night. In preparation I removed the bonnet, HT leads, spark plugs, cam cover, Aux belt , water pump pulley and all the cambelt covers leaving only the crankshaft pulley. Malcolm and Dale arrived at 7:30pm and set to worked, the engine was set to TDC on a locking pin and the crank pulley removed. The cams and caps were marked with a paint pen which was then scribed to provide a very accurate position marking. Once this was done the cambelt was removed and replaced as normal and then the cams 'swung' back to the painted/scribed offset marking. After manually cranking the engine through a full cycle and the cams checked against the paint/scribed markings with one needing a minor adjustment. Once this was done Malcolm and Dale left me to refit all the covers etc and give the engine a quick start to make sure everything was okay - total time 1.5 hours. As the engine was new and we were only changing the belt based on ageing I retained the existing pulleys and water pump and will change them all in 5 years.
After doing Stoneleigh on a day trip last year I decided that overnighting was the best option. With only 4 Westfields from the Dorset Area doing the trip we agreed to meet up with others from the Hampshire/Wiltshire/Costwolds Areas on the way. I met Colin at Sparkford at just before 7am and we headed off to Warminster to meet with Chris, Malcolm and Dale. From Warminster we headed off to the services at Cirencester to meet up with the main group with one more added to the convoy at Stow-on-the-Wold. After a spirited blat we arrived at Stoneleigh just before 11am and setup camp.
The show seemed much busier that last year in terms of visitors and Westfield seemed to have made a bigger effort with 3 cars of their stand (Zetec, Vtec and Ecoboost......very nice) plus a lot of spares and special offers, overall there seemed to be fewer of the smaller niche stands, Omex didn't turn up (so I'll have to post Steve's ECU!) and CBS only offer a short term discount code and free postage for you to order online - I missed the ability to actually look at/measure their kit so didn't spend too much time or any money with them.
Purchases were a pair of 55mm clear LED indicators for the rear lights, high intensity reversing and fog LED 55mm lights from SVC (about £150 the lot)
and an enamel Westfield bonnet badge (£10) I was severely tempted by the Toyo R888R offer (205/50R15 x 4 for £375) but managed to resist - the biblical rain on the journey home have may proved my decision to have been a good one.
and also led to me getting seam tape for the 1/2 hood
