they got into today and said it looks like the pulleys were bad tensioner was pretty bad and the water pump is leaking, the thoughts are the p.o. just threw a belt on it and called it good. i pissed because i paid more then i wanted because i thought i had 20,000 before i would need a new belt. oh well its just money...right

I'm in the process of doing this fix, myself. The Gates belt kit has the water pump and and tensioner for about $60. It says OEM parts and Gates belt - seems like a good setup. .

yeah i told them to use gates. i also had all gates belts put on awhile ago.

and it goes on. so there is no way my timing belt was changed at 40,000 ago even though i have paper work. either the shop that supposedly did the job was crooked or someone gave me fake paper work. the belt was just old dried and cracked there is no way it would be in that shape. we are also questioning if the motor really was replace (i have paper work for the motor but nothing for the install) anyway i had them do the leaking valve covers why they were in the there new water pump, pulleys , and tensioner. to ad to it i could see the radiator was bad and knew i would have to replace it but when they took it out it fell apart in there hands. so I'm having them put in a new radiator. it should be done tomorrow, with the amount of money and parts i have now put into this thing I'm going to keep it and just keep dealing with the things as they pop up. there is no way i could get what i have invested in it back out at this point. i do love the truck believe once i replace pretty much everything it will be great.

I've been going through same thing for a year. eventually you'll run out of things to fix. that's what i keep telling myself.

i can do a lot of the work myself but just don't have the facilities to get into the bigger stuff or stuff that will take a week. there are so many $250 jobs on this thing its crazy

the other half of my life is boats. we call $100 a boat unit and joke that BOAT stands for break out another thousand. still trying to figure out an acronym for this project - maybe WOMBAT.

dont worry, eventually the $250 things will reduce to $100 things. as you zoom in on a completed rig it seems the costs go down and having a worry free ride is that much closer. at least that's what i tell myself.

The local dealer who I go to for parts has a Gates timing belt display on the wall. Made me feel good about getting Gates in the past. Can't beat the price for the whole kit from RockAuto...

well i got the montero back today! here is list of what was done

timing belt
tensioner
camshaft seal
water pump
valve covers
camshaft sprocket
radiator and cap
new coolant
distributor
and they cleaned the crap out of the under side so we can see if it has any leaks, they also fixed a transition leak and topped off the t-case. all in all my pockets are now $1700 lighter but the thing runs great. there still is a lot of stuff to go but i thinks it worth it.

How many payments would that be on a new truck? Wheels eat money one way or another, all you can do is slow the bleeding.