Honda GCV160 timing belt

Ford and VW have a few engines that do. I know the 1.0L ford does, believe the 1.6 has switched to it and I have no idea which VW engine has an oil bathed timing belt.
 
Indeed that Ford 1.0L Ecoboost has a "wet belt". Didn't know that.

Well, we know they work well for small Honda OPE engines. 18yrs and counting this engine has been in production. The part I can't wrap my head around is belt replacement. AFAIK, you'd have to completely tear the engine apart and remove the crankshaft to get a new belt over the crank sprocket.
 
Yes, you'd have to take the engine apart to remove the belt. Like most residential grade small engines, the Hondas are designed (and priced) as disposable units, not really meant to be serviced. That said, I just combined a GCV and a GC into a hybrid (a different thread on that), and they're completely serviceable if you do the work yourself and don't pay labor. You'd never pay a shop for work like this because the labor is far more than the price of a new engine. Just like a Briggs or Kohler engine -- you'd never actually pay a shop to open it up to replace a broken camshaft drive or governor or something -- you'd just re-power the equipment with a replacement engine.

A few pictures of the inside of one of these...captions following each picture.

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This is the main cylinder crank case on a GC/GCV engine. Smartly, this piece is the exact same part number for horizontal shaft (GC) and vertical shaft (GCV). The only part that differs is what they call the case cover, which mates to this along that angled flange. This cylinder crank case came from a GCV160 I had that I bought new in 2003 that came on a Craftsman mower. I kept the engine around just in case I needed it. That day came recently (other project), but I share these photos for the timing belt part. In this picture above, the case is "upside down", and that horizontal pocket you see above the cylinder in this picture would be below the cylinder as installed. That's the pocket through which the timing belt passes.

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Out of sequence for this thread, but this is the timing belt installed in the GCV cylinder case, with the GC case cover sitting next to it, ready for assembly. You can see how the belt runs directly from the crankshaft up to the camshaft. There are no tensioners or guide pulleys or anything in here. It's just a simple two-sprocket system.

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This is the "bottom" cover of the case for the GCV engine, and is oriented as it would be installed on a mower. So this is the "bottom half" to the cylinder case shown in the above picture on the left, if used in a GCV configuration on a mower. I have the crankshaft in it and the timing belt is strung around its sprocket on the crankshaft, just for the photograph. (When you assemble one of these, you do it like in the photo above, and fit everything to the cylinder case, and just move the case cover, whether it's a GCV one or a GC one, into place over the PTO snout of the crankshaft.)

The belt doesn't actually sit in oil, but as the crankshaft spins, the larger toothed sprocket just above the timing belt drives the governor sprocket, which does sit in oil, and the whole works becomes wet with oil pretty quickly.

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Another angle, showing the crankshaft and governor sprocket.

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Yet another angle. These engines are SO simple. You can pretty much count the moving parts in the crankcase on one hand. Governor, crankshaft, connecting rod, timing belt. That's it. The timing belt transfers the entire valvetrain to the top of the cylinder. So, if you do have a bad camshaft or bad decompression device, it can be replaced from the front or top without opening the rest of the engine, which is not possible with a conventional OHV engine.

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This is the exact belt that came on the GCV160 I bought new in 2003. It's 13 years old and mowed a lot grass in southern North Carolina over its lifetime. As you can see in this picture, and in the one below, it looks brand new still.

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In my GC/GCV project, I used the GC's timing belt because I knew it had fewer hours on it. But this well-used GCV160 belt looks like it has another lifetime's worth of service in it.

After taking apart completely a GC160 and a GCV160, these engines aren't nearly as scary as some make them out to be. The GC160 died (after 14 years) due to what I believe to be a manufacturing error in the rocker arm area (again, more on that in another thread), but the castings and parts quality in these are quite noteworthy for being "disposable engines".
 
When my 1991 HRA215SXC mower's steel deck finally rusted beyond repair (the GXV140 engine still started first pull) I decided that my new mower needed to have only one feature: a Honda engine. I've lived with enough unreliable Briggs and Tecumseh engines to have learned my lesson. My new Toro Recycler has the GCV160 and it has been great.
 
Update.

After 5 years and approximately 250 hours since the timing belt incident, I am happy to report that my little Honda is still running as happily as ever. Our Vermont property is no longer our summer home since we retired in 2020 and is now our primary residence.

I don't anticipate this little engine slowing down anytime soon since it gets annual oil & air filter changes in addition to regular blade sharpening.
 
All the lawn equipment i have owned were all Briggs and stratton and i never had an engine related problem my snow blower is a 1966 heavy duty allis charmers and it still runs great.. I have many mowers all B&S engines with no issues. Although my housekeeper now does my lawns and she seems to break the wheels off of everything the engines run great!
Everything lawn related runs on strait 30
Agree. I will stick with my B&S engines. A belt has no business being used in that kind of environment.
 
I don't really have an issue with the timing belts. The only real issue I've seen is that there were a few years (mostly the early engines) where the guides in the valve cover could allow the belt to slip off. That seems to be fixed on the newer ones and they have a different valve cover. The belt isn't necessarily made to cheapen the engine, but more for quieter operation. I have more issues with Briggs snowblower engines and their stupid plastic cam gears that like to strip, fuel tanks that crack, etc.
 
I'm still rocking a 1999 model year Honda push mower with a GCV160. It doesn't get many hours/year put on it, but even the carburetor, pull start, throttle cable (actually has a throttle lever) are all factory original. I lent it to my FIL this summer and found that he had been running it with the air cleaner and air filter housing off. He knocked it off on something and couldn't figure out how to put it back on. :rolleyes:

Like jeepman3071 says, these belts make these engines incredibly quiet for a mower engine. It's by far the quietest and smoothest push mower engine I have ever owned.
 
Removed the OEM engine on my Snapper Hi Vac in 1998 (IIRC), replaced with Honda GVC160. What a difference.

I really give this thing a workout every summer. Less likely to bog down in thick turf, quiet, zero difficulty starting compared to the previous power unit.

Just oil and air filter changes over the last 22 years. Dose of PRI-G in the fuel before putting it away for the winter each October.

Mobil 1 or AmSOil 10W30 and a dash of Cera Tec for the springtime oil change regimen.

OF
 
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