I've said for many years that my 2000 Chrysler Cirrus has been a wonderful car. Wife #2 and I bought this car in 2003 at which time it had a mere 12k original miles on the odometer. Fourteen years and 65k miles later, my feelings have not changed. This has been a great car. Maintenance is easy, repairs are few, and operating costs are low.

Like any other car, it does require some periodic maintenance beyond oil and filter changes. The tried and true Mopar 2.4L I-4 cylinder is approaching the time and mileage specs for a timing belt replacement. The timing belt synchronizes the crankshaft and camshafts and keeps the engine in "time," hence the name. It's a significant project that is very labor intensive due to the tight spaces involved.

Having a few days off over the Christmas Holiday provided a good opportunity to get this project done.

I actually ordered the necessary parts several months ago in anticipation of having to do this. The timing belt kit contains a belt, belt tensioner, and idler pulley. And since I'm in the neighborhood, I'll replace the water pump as well. On this car, the water pump is timing belt driven, and one is never replaced without the other.

The timing belt sits on the right side of the engine under the plastic cover next to the oil fill cap seen in the photo above. A lot of stuff has to be moved out of the way to access the belt and its components.

After lifting the front of the car and supporting it with jack stands, I removed the right front wheel.

With the wheel out of the way, I now have access to the inner splash shield.

I removed the fasteners and removed the shield.

The large pulley seen in the photo above is the crankshaft pulley which has to be removed. But the engine has to be lowered to remove the pulley.

The right side engine mount needs to be removed in order to lower the engine. There are three bolts on top of the mount.

In order to get to the mount and bolts, I made some space by removing the coolant reservoir.

The alternator shield needed to be removed as well.

I also removed the EVAP purge valve.

This gave me enough space to get to the serpentine belt tensioner.

I loosened the tensioner and removed the serpentine belt.

Since I'm trying to remove one of the engine mounts, I will need to support the engine from underneath. My floor jack and a block of wood did the trick.

I removed the three upper fasteners.

There are also two fasteners under the mount that had to be removed.

With all the fasteners removed, the engine mount could be removed.

I also have to remove the bracket the engine mount bolts to.

Three bolts hold the engine mount bracket in place.

At this point, the upper timing belt cover could be removed.

With the cover out of the way, I removed the bracket.

The bolts that hold the bracket in place are different lengths. So I needed to keep track of what bolt goes where.

Now I have partial access to the timing belt. Now the crankshaft pulley and lower timing belt cover need to be removed.

The first step was to remove the center bolt that holds the pulley in place.

The crankshaft pulley is a press-fit pulley, meaning it's on there tight ! This requires a special tool which O'Reilly Auto Parts has available as part of their "Tool Loaner" program.

I also removed the front engine mount bolt to allow the engine to drop as much as possible.

I removed the crankshaft pulley vial a combination of lowering the engine and using the special tool.

In order to make more space, I unbolted the cooling system filler neck and moved it out of the way.

With the crankshaft pulley removed, the lower timing belt cover can be removed.

Now I have access to the timing belt, belt tensioner, and idler pulley.

I'll remove the timing belt next by rotating the tensioner. And since I'm replacing the water pump, I'll need to remove the inner timing belt cover

But before I can remove the timing belt, I need to make sure I have the engine timing marks correctly aligned. I did this by reinstalling the crankshaft pulley bolt and rotating the engine by hand. The arrow on the top center of the small pulley in the photo above must align with a mark on the engine block.

With the marks aligned, I used a dab of Liquid Paper to mark the spot.

With the bottom marks aligned, the marks on each camshaft will be aligned. I marked the cam pulleys as well.

Rotating the timing belt tensioner released tension on the belt.

One fastener holds the idler pulley in place.

With no tension on the belt and everything out of the way, I removed the timing belt. Mine was actually still in very good condition and probably could have lasted a few more years/miles. But, there is a reason why it's called "Preventative Maintenance."

With the timing belt out of the car, I can now work on replacing the water pump. The first step in this process is to drain the cooling system. Where's the radiator drain plug ?

The radiator drain plug is behind the front bumper cover, which means I have to remove that as well. This isn't as hard as it sounds. The first step was to remove both headlamp assemblies to access some of the fasteners.

I removed the many small fasteners that hold the front bumper cover in place and moved it out of the way.

This made draining the radiator much easier !

The large grooved pulley seen in the center of the photo above is the water pump.

Replacing the water pump means I have to remove the inner timing belt cover. So I have to remove everything in front of it, starting with the camshaft pulleys.

Removing the camshaft pulleys allows access to two of the inner timing belt cover fasteners.

I then removed the lower fasteners and removed the inner timing belt cover.

Inner timing belt cover.

With the inner timing belt cover out of the way, the water pump is easily accessible.

Five bolts hold the water pump in place, one of which is a bolt for the engine mount which I removed earlier.