lol...a little heavy?!?

I drove around a few days with no power steering....and finally changed the belts today!  Man...it's SO nice to have power steering again!!   =)

I paid a couple extra bucks and sprung for the Goodyear Gatorback belts.   I figure why not...since I abuse the tracker so much, and it eats so much water and mud....lolz.

Thanks for the help dudes. 

YIKES!
i'm over 120,000 miles on my timing belt.  I've been scared to do it because i remember a post here a while back that there is a spring that shoots out and people lose all the time.  and that i should never take it to any mechanic only the dealer because they don't know about the spring and usually do it wrong causing the car to become a great parts car after.

so the whole idea scares the hell out of me, i know it needs it, but my truck runs flawlessly now so i don't want it ruined.

Well it scares me too....but I think you can take some shortcuts when changing the timing belt.  If you are ONLY replacing the belt....I heard you can just take off what you need to, to get to the belt...keep an eye on the timing marks on the pulleys....loosen the tensioner...put new belt on...and tighten tensioner.   I don't know how true that is....I'd look into it more before trying it.

You could look around in your area for a mechanic that has done one properly and knows how to do it.

Okay, let's lose all this "Scary" talk.

It ain't that hard if done properly.

Here is the direct link to the '88 Samurai Factory Service manual (Part 1) at Ack's FAQ:

http://www.acksfaq.com/pdfs/sam881_434.pdf

Page 3-10 has the procedure for removing the belt.

Pages 3-48 to 3-50 has the procedure for installing a new belt.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The procedure for re-installing the timing belt in pages 3-48 to 3-50 in the FSM ASSUMES that you have completely rebuilt the engine!.

Since most folks are simply removing the old one and re-installing a new one, IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO LOOSEN THE VALVE LASH NUTS!  The LAST THING you want to do is to permit the camshaft to turn - which is EXACTLY what will happen if you loosen up the valve lash nuts! In order to maintain the current correct timing, you MUST NOT turn either the crank or the camshaft while the timing belt is being installed!  So leave the valve lash nuts alone!

Once the timing belt is installed - with ZERO SLACK on the non-tensioner side - and the tensioner has been set to take up the slack, you DO want to rotate the crankshft clockwise two revolutions to seat the belt and adjust the tensioner again, if necessary.  You can do this by removing the sparkplugs and hand-turning the engine using a socket and the bolt on the end of the crank.

Finally, in case you have never heard my rant on how to correctly remove the crankshaft accessory belt pulley in order to get the timing belt cover off, DO NOT - I REPEAT DO NOT - remove the crankshaft accessory belt pulley by removing the large 17mm bolt on the end of the crankshaft! 

ALWAYS remove the crankshaft accessory belt pulley by removing the four smaller bolts that hold the crankshaft accessory belt pulley to the toothed crankshaft timing belt pulley!  The pictures in the FSM pages (listed above) illustrate this very well.

I have successfully done this procedure using the above-described technique without pulling the radiator.

I hope that this clears up this misinformation-laden topic.

It does indeed.  Thanks a bunch Ack!

=)