02-22-2015, 06:24 AM
In a recent post, I spoke about having to dismantle my Mum's engine after the timing belt let go. The car is a Holden (Vauxhall/Opel) Astra 1.9L SOHC turbo diesel, with a little over 70,000 Km on the clock.
I was really surprised to get the head off and find that pistons were not trashed, nor were the valves bent. However, it is going to need a new head and camshaft, and the RH end drives the brake vacuum pump and the slot in the end of the cam has been damaged and broke the drive adapter in half. In the process it has gouged the end cam journal. I'm going to price up an exchange head.
The reason the timing belt failed was that it got shredded by an idler that had tuned into a blob of molten plastic. I had to chisel off a lump of melted plastic so I could undo the bolt that holds it to the block. At first I thought the bearing must have failed but once I removed it, the bearing turned out to be fine. I am at a loos as to what happened.
The intake manifold, intake ports and other parts of the air intake system are full of an oily sludge, which I hope has occurred as a result of the timing failure. However, the head gasket shows no signed of failure...
Here are some pictures:
One trashed timing belt:
The culprit:
One of the pistons:
Sludge in the throttle body:
I was really surprised to get the head off and find that pistons were not trashed, nor were the valves bent. However, it is going to need a new head and camshaft, and the RH end drives the brake vacuum pump and the slot in the end of the cam has been damaged and broke the drive adapter in half. In the process it has gouged the end cam journal. I'm going to price up an exchange head.
The reason the timing belt failed was that it got shredded by an idler that had tuned into a blob of molten plastic. I had to chisel off a lump of melted plastic so I could undo the bolt that holds it to the block. At first I thought the bearing must have failed but once I removed it, the bearing turned out to be fine. I am at a loos as to what happened.
The intake manifold, intake ports and other parts of the air intake system are full of an oily sludge, which I hope has occurred as a result of the timing failure. However, the head gasket shows no signed of failure...
Here are some pictures:
One trashed timing belt:
The culprit:
One of the pistons:
Sludge in the throttle body:
Hunting American dentists since 2015.