We did yet another timing belt job today at the house. Wei, Chris and I tackled a timing belt install on Sandy's 2000 VW Jetta. Wei said that it had to be done before he moved Sandy to Midland, so it pretty much had to be done this weekend. We had a late start as the guys didn't show up until around 11am. We also had a pretty rough start, as Wei accidentally snapped off the dipstick tube within the first 30 minutes of working on the car. I quickly called Charles Maund Volkswagen to see if they had a replacement piece. They did, and they also had an o-ring that was needed to fix a leaky coolant line that we also found right before dipstick tube broke. Their parts department closed at 1pm, so we headed out to buy the needed part, grab some lunch, and buy some other supplies that we were going to need. We got back to the house at 1:00 and then actually start on the timing belt job, as we didn't really get anywhere in the morning.

Chris and I worked on the timing belt side of things, while Wei worked on fixing the dipstick tube, and the leaky coolant pipe. Our experience with timing belts is more with Hondas and Toyotas, so the VW design was slightly different and a little challenging at times. But surprisingly, Chris and I finished the job in about 4 hours, including cleaning up tools, parts, and what-not. There were a few snags along the way, mostly because of differences in motor design, but there was nothing that super delayed us in getting the job done. Four hours is actually pretty good, as mechanics usually charge about 5-7 hours of labor for a timing belt job. In fact, Wei called VW to see how much a timing belt would cost. He was quoted $700! So by doing the work ourselves, in a way we made money today.

Although, I didn't see a single dime of that money:)

All that work has made me tired though, I'm pretty exhausted. I plan on just taking it easy tonight which kinda stinks because I haven't done much running this past week and I'm itching to go for a run.