Camry Question

[Racincc85]

A friend of mine's dad has a toyota camry with 214,000 miles on it. A few weeks ago, one of the struts broke. Since then it's been sitting in his driveway since he has another car to use. I can easily fix the strut and he said that he would sell it to me for 200 bucks as he doesn't really need it anymore. It seems to be in good condition, but there a few questionable things about it. It is a manual transmission, and the clutch has 114,000 miles on it. The owner is an experienced stick driver who was driving stick before he even bought this car so I feel a little bit better about the high mileage on it, but in general how long does a clutch last? I only plan on keeping the car for the summer and it will see probably about 10,000 miles. Would it be possible to squeeze that much more life out of it?

The A/C doesn't work. There is freon in the system, so I am assuming that it is the compressor revolution sensor, which after doing some reading seems to be a common problem on these cars. Is it really necessary to have this sensor? I was thinking of bypassing this sensor by wiring up a custom circuit (still using the high and low cut out switches to retain the cycling function) that triggered a relay to engage the fan and the compressor clutch. The revolution sensor is 150 bucks, and i really don't want to pay it.

The timing belt has about 70k on it. Whats the recommened change interval for toyota's, and if i didn't beat the engine too bad could i get another 10k out of it?

I really would like this car as it is cheap and gets good gas mileage and any help on these questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

[Andrewh]

Recommened change is 50-60k for the belt. Not sure I would push it another 10. But if you can get an inspection cover off, you might check it for cracking. If it isn't bad, then you could give it a try.
You don't say what year or engine, so I would look up if it is an interference engine or not as well. If it is, spend a couple of bucks and change the belt yourself.
As for the a/c, check in the center of the pulley and see if the bolt is still there. I had a friend that had the a/c go out, and the bolt in the center backed out. So no shims or center and the compressor could not engage. Otherwise, I do not know if you can bypass the sensor.
As for the clutch, it depends on how good you are. I have seen cars go over 200k on the same clutch only to have 1 person that can't drive eat it in one day. Same goes true for a new car though.

[Racincc85]

Sorry, I thought that I mentioned the year. It's a 1991 camry with the 2.0 liter 4 banger. I think that engine is an interference engine. I'm going to go back and look at the car next week, so i'll try to get the cover off and see what the belt looks like. If it's only 50 bucks for the belt and the job doesn't look to involved i'll just go ahead and change it, but if it does then i'll just take my chances and if the belt breaks im not out too much money. I'm also going to look and see if there is an inspection plate I can remove to check how much clutch is left. How much material should be on the clutch in order for it to be considered in decent condition?

[Evil Result]

Toyota engines with a belt are the non-interference type...at least thats what i heard. If its a chain then you have a valve blender