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Thank for the info, Joel. This is just the kind of stuff I needed and appreciate your time in providing the necessary details. I have not looked at the thing very closely yet, but it sounds as though there is some sort of access available by removing the FRH wheel and going in through the inner fender - not sure what all that exposes.
This car is a non-turbo that I just purchased from a private party with 150,000 miles on it. It has a near-pristine interior and excellent exterior minus a couple minor boo-boos. I got it for what seems to be a reasonable price, knowing the previous owner couldn't provide much in the way of service history including any proof of T-belt replacement. I was able to trace back one step and talked to the original owner who was equally clueless about the timing belt. All he knows is that he would take it to any handy repair shop for service and can't recall if the T-belt was ever replaced. I told him it would have cost around $250 and he doesn't recall ever spending that kind of money. My guess is that they generally used dino oil in it, so at 150,000 I'm struggling with the decision to go synthetic or not. If it were a turbo I'd do it for sure. If it didn't have so darn many miles on the T-belt, I'd probably convert to Synthetic oil first and drive it for a while. Then if a front end seal started leaking I could fix it at the same time as the T-belt replacement. But I'm already getting nervous about running it on the old belt. I guess I'll go ahead and replace the belt and service the PCV system now and then convert to synthetic at the next oil change - unless someone can provide a compelling reason against that approach.
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