Evening all, I hope you all had a restful Christmas!
I’m wanting to replace the auxiliary engine parts in the new year, namely the belt, water pump, the idlers and the tensioner.
My predicament is just how much mx5 parts charge for the OEM parts! To go OEM will cost me £400 and aftermarket will be £225… Quite a difference.
Has anyone done this job with aftermarket parts before, any thoughts? I’d far rather go OEM but that’s quite a difference.
Less than £100 the lot (minus water pump) from Autolink, all aftermarket.
I didn’t do the water pump, I’ve never read of a failure on the NC or how much of a job it is.
I can give you a tip if you don’t have Aircon👍
Hi Chris, I hope you get sorted.
When I did mine on a 1.8 NB I bought the OEM waterpump and gasket but used a Gates timing belt set which included both pulleys. £95 iirc🤔
I don’t know whether there is a kit for NC or if there is, how much it costs, sorry.
Hth
Cheers,
Guy
Ah I’ve never used Autolink before, I’ll have a look! Yep no Aircon, what’s the suggestion?
Buy these parts…
The tip is, this last selection above is just a replacement pulley for the tensioner assembly (second link down) it’s much much cheaper to buy that than the dedicated pulley option you can buy. This fits in the idler pulley position where you would have the Aircon cars pulley marked in red below.
Use the plate (large washer) from the old tensioner pulley that you removed/replaced. Doing it this way saved me around £40.
Also in Autolink you can get discount if you apply ‘MX5NUTZ’ in the promo code box before completing payment. Don’t think we have a OC code to use??
I priced the parts up at Mx5parts, as you say it’s a big difference compared to those posted above.
Autolink have been a reputable supplier of parts for years, use them all the time and got my last auxiliary belt and kit shown above from them.
The bits I replaced…
So am I getting this right… You’re saying to buy two tensioner pulleys, one to reuse the existing tensioner spring part and the large washer and bolt, and the other instead of the idler pulley?
Buy the 4 items I have linked to. The fourth item I’ve linked to is just the pulley for the tensioner. That will replace the bottom pulley (no Aircon) shown marked in red. To fix this use the plate off the tensioner pulley shown centre of the picture I’ve posted. The left pulley (idler) I removed if you notice has a larger plate with bolt which didn’t fit the new idler.
You can if course buy this one below instead of the one in link number 4 but the price:thinking:
I think I prefer the lower priced one.
It all fitted nicely, good job and great parts.
I thought the nc2 2liter has a timing chain, not a belt?
or does it have a timing chain and all that other stuff is just a fancy fan and alternator belt?
This is the front end aux drive for the alternator ps pump water pump etc. The fan is electric. All mk3s have chain driven camshafts which, in theory at least, require no regular servicing.
thank you for clearing that up for me!
timing belts have always made me feel uneasy!
yes, I know chains are a pain to change but they are very unlikely to simply break without warning!
they usually rattle like hell for a few thousand miles first!
