Quick safety check before you begin. Required: safety glasses, gloves, the truck level on a lift or on jack stands with the wheels chocked, and the engine cold. Recommended: a torque wrench that reaches 181 ft-lb, and the factory manual for your exact truck and year. Not a video, and not this page: the table below tells you which figures differ so you know what to look up, it does not replace the manual for your vehicle.
| Replacement interval | 90,000 miles on all six manuals we read. The 2008 Sequoia is the only one that also prints a time limit: every 108 months, whichever comes first. |
|---|---|
| Crankshaft pulley bolt | 245 N·m (181 ft-lb). Identical on all six. |
| Timing belt tensioner bolts | 26 N·m (19 ft-lb). Identical on all six. |
| Timing belt idler bolts | 25 ft-lb. Printed as 34.5 N·m on some platforms and 35 N·m on others; in imperial they are the same number. |
| The recheck | Turn the crankshaft pulley 2 revolutions, TDC to TDC, always clockwise, then confirm every mark. Universal across all six. |
| Set-up: 4Runner 4th gen, GX 470 | Approximately 50° BTDC, then turn the crankshaft counterclockwise by approximately 50°. |
| Set-up: Land Cruiser 100 | Approximately 50° ATDC, then turn the crankshaft pulley approximately 50° clockwise. |
| Set-up: Sequoia 1st gen, Tundra 1st gen | Straight to TDC/compression. There is no 50° offset step in these procedures at all. |
| Set-up: Sequoia 2nd gen (2008) | TDC/compression, rotating the crankshaft clockwise to align the marks. |
| Marks on a reused belt | 4Runner and GX 470 check for 3. Land Cruiser 100 tells you to make 2. Sequoia 1st gen and first-gen Tundra print both figures at different steps. The 2008 Sequoia does not mention them. |
| Tensioner push-rod protrusion | Three different ranges across the platforms: 9.5-10.5 mm, 10.5-11.5 mm, and 11.2-12.2 mm. Use your own manual's figure. We are not printing one number here because a tensioner that passes on one spec sits at the edge of another. |
| Is the 2UZ-FE an interference engine? | None of the six manuals says so. The word does not appear. What every one of them does print is a piston-to-valve contact warning tied to crankshaft angle during service. |
Every manual we read gives 90,000 miles. If yours is a 2008 Sequoia, the schedule also says every 108 months, whichever comes first, which is nine years. A garage-kept truck at 60,000 miles and twelve years old is overdue by its own book.
This is the step people skip and it is the one that matters. The set-up angle and the direction you turn the crankshaft are not the same across these five platforms. A procedure that is correct on a 4Runner is backwards on a Land Cruiser 100. Look up your own platform's figures in the table above and confirm them against your manual.
4Runner 4th gen and GX 470: approximately 50° BTDC on compression, turning the crankshaft counterclockwise by approximately 50°. Land Cruiser 100: approximately 50° ATDC on compression, turning the pulley 50° clockwise. Sequoia 1st gen and first-gen Tundra: straight to TDC on compression with no offset. 2008 Sequoia: TDC, rotating clockwise to align. Check that the camshaft pulley marks line up with the belt plates; if they do not, turn the crankshaft one full revolution and look again.
Toyota's notice, present in every one of these manuals in one wording or another: if the timing belt is disengaged, having the crankshaft pulley at the wrong angle can cause the piston head and valve head to come into contact with each other when you remove the camshaft timing pulley and camshaft, causing damage. That is why the angle is written down, and why using another truck's number is not a small error.
The 4Runner and GX 470 procedures check that three installation marks are present. The Land Cruiser 100 tells you to place two new marks to match the camshaft pulley timing marks. The Sequoia 1st gen and first-gen Tundra print both, at different steps, because they are two different operations: a check on the existing marks and an instruction to re-mark if they have faded. The 2008 Sequoia's belt procedure has no reused-belt marking step at all.
Check each idler for seal leakage and that it turns smoothly. Compress the tensioner push rod and measure its protrusion against your own platform's figure, then pin it with a 1.27 mm hex wrench. Check the water pump's air hole and water hole for coolant leakage and that the bearing turns smoothly and quietly. If the pump is leaking, the manual says to replace the pump and the timing belt. It does not mandate replacing a healthy pump with the belt, though the pump cannot be reached without pulling the belt, which is why most shops do them together.
Crankshaft pulley bolt 245 N·m (181 ft-lb). Timing belt tensioner 26 N·m (19 ft-lb). Idler bolts 25 ft-lb. On the idler pivot bolt, apply thread adhesive to two or three threads: Three Bond 1344 or Loctite 242 on most of these platforms, and Three Bond 1324 on the 2008 Sequoia, which specifies a different product and only when reusing the shaft.
Slowly turn the crankshaft pulley two full revolutions from TDC to TDC, always clockwise, then confirm that every pulley aligns with its timing mark. This step is worded almost identically in all six manuals. If the marks do not align, the instruction is to remove the timing belt and reinstall it. There is no adjusting your way out of it.
This is a hard job with a real consequence for getting the angle wrong, and it is one where we would rather you went in prepared than confident. If you would like it done, we are at scheduled events across Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska.
Find your exact tune →90,000 miles. Every one of the six manuals we read agrees, though only two print it as a standalone specification and the rest carry it as a line item in the 90,000-mile schedule. The 2008 Sequoia is the only one that also gives a time limit: every 108 months, whichever comes first.
No, and this is the most important thing on this page. The 4Runner procedure sets the crankshaft approximately 50 degrees before top dead center and turns it counterclockwise. The Land Cruiser 100 procedure sets it approximately 50 degrees after top dead center and turns it clockwise. Those are opposite. The Sequoia and first-gen Tundra have no offset step at all. Use the manual for your own truck.
None of the six manuals we read says so. We searched all of them and the word does not appear. What every one of them does print is a warning that with the belt disengaged, a crankshaft at the wrong angle can bring the piston head and valve head into contact during service. That is a warning about what happens while you are working, not a statement about what happens if a belt breaks at speed. Anyone who tells you the manual settles that question has not read it.
It depends on your platform, and the three figures do not overlap: 9.5 to 10.5 mm, 10.5 to 11.5 mm, and 11.2 to 12.2 mm. A tensioner that passes on one spec sits at the boundary of another, so we are not going to print a single number here. Read the figure in your own manual.
Toyota does not require it. What the manual says is that if the water pump shows coolant leakage at the air hole or water hole you replace the pump and the timing belt, and that the bearing should turn smoothly and quietly. Doing a healthy pump with the belt is sound shop practice, because the pump cannot be reached without pulling the belt, but it is practice rather than a manual instruction and we are not going to attribute it to Toyota.
Turn the crankshaft pulley two full revolutions from TDC to TDC, always clockwise, then check that every pulley aligns with its timing mark. This is worded almost identically across all six manuals. If the marks do not line up, the instruction is to remove the belt and reinstall it.
Intervals, torques, set-up angles and mark counts are quoted from the Toyota and Lexus repair manuals for the 4Runner 4th gen (2003), Land Cruiser 100 (1998), Sequoia 1st gen (2001), Sequoia 2nd gen (2008), GX 470 (2003) and Tundra 1st gen (2000). Each is one model year of its platform; confirm the figures for your exact year against your own manual before you begin. Timing-mark alignment is shown in the manuals as illustrations that a text source cannot reproduce, so this page tells you which figures differ, not what correct alignment looks like.