bbarbulo
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2003
- Location
- Windsor, ON, Canada
One day this thing showed up to my house. On a tow truck.
Wherever it was really messed things up.
Dragged it into the driveway. Two other cars were happily occupying that space in the driveway, but now they're on the street and this thing shares the driveway with god's chariot. I tried pushing it, but the brakes are dragging. I managed to push it a little ways and got exhausted, so I went to pull the ebrake... it just rolled down the driveway. So brake job and rebuilding rear calipers is on the list so far.
Story goes, and parts confirm, the initial failure was broken bolts on the harmonic balancer caused the timing to jump. The car came to me with the timing belt on, VC was removed and was off, random bolts were peppered inside the head, IC piping and the airbox and MAF were missing, and the battery was dead, the engine was hanging by one bolt - the one that goes through the timing belt path. And that bolt was bent.
So I figured start with 1st things first - how MUCH did timing jump and was there contact? Figured a compression test should tell me something. Removed glow plugs and threaded in a comp test. I was about to throw the battery in, but I thought maybe try it by hand first. Nothing.... couldn't turn the engine. Figured maybe someone forgot a locking tool somewhere, so I check the usual suspects, nothing is locked. Tried the engine the other way, it goes about 20 degrees and hits again. So valve contact confirmed. BUT... wait... this isn't contact from the initial failure, this is contact caused by someone reinstalling the belt in a random fashion. It becomes clear later why...
wait wut?? that's not looking like TDC!!
at this point #1 lobes are pointing up in a V and injection pump is roughly close to the lock point also. hmmm...
whoever put the TB back on didn't do it right.
here you see the mount is just hanging there on a bent bolt. when I do the TB, I remove the mount outright... base from the chassis, and mount from the block. The mount is a bear to get out, but at least you don't damage stuff.
note the lobes are pointing up on #1
so at this point, I know the engine is way out of time and I don't recall if there is a 'safe' cam position that would allow me to spin the bottom end over. I decide to remove the cam - one because it allows me to close all the valves and do a compression test, and two because it lets me see the lifters clearly and inspect them for damage
the car did not have a hole for punching the cam sprocket loose the way my dad's car does, so I drilled one. I tried a three jaw puller first, but like the rest of the car, the sprocket is an engineering embarrassment. 5 spokes to ensure that a three jaw puller won't fit, and no provisions for using a steering wheel puller style puller either. these cars keep specialty tool manufacturers in high demand.
next up, punched markings in the cam caps to keep them in order and...
#1 cyl intake valve was the one that hit.
Now, remember when I was trying to turn the engine over by hand, the lobes on #1 cyl were pointing up, so there is no way the interference I was feeling at that time was the same interference that caused the failure. So someone must have touched the TB after the fact. Fortunately it doesn't look like they attempted to start the car like that. Admittedly I almost did when the car first came to me, but luckily the battery was dead.
here you see the hole in the TB backing plate where the punch hole should be. There is a slight dimple in the plastic which is how you know where to drill. I use a small brass punch and a light tap... don't wanna distort the sprocket by going ape on it.
I was going to pull the head, turbo, and IM all together.
I attempted to remove the exhaust collector from the turbo but couldn't even get a tool in there straight. The bolts are too close to the pipe so as to ensure a 13mm socket can't fit on there. Shame on me for using an impact socket, but that's what I had handy in a deep 1/2" drive variety. Could have been worse, they could have assembled everything with allen head bolts so that everything rounds off easily. Speaking of which, I went on to remove the intake manifold with the aforementioned allen head bolts My hands were freezing so it was really hard to feel around and stab the 6mm hex heads into the bolts, and I haven't yet evolved a third arm to hold a light and a mirror and a ratchet.
That was it for the night. As you can tell by the quality of the last pic, it was dark already.
Not sure why I even got into this mess... I just hate seeing good cars scrapped.
A side note, I did attempt a compression test. The needle would move on the compression stroke but for some reason my rig wouldn't hold the reading, as the piston went back down, so did my reading. Not quite sure why normally the compression stays on the gauge until I hit the little release button on the side. That was annoying but no matter what, the head has to come off so the comp test may be irrelevant anyways.
Wherever it was really messed things up.
Dragged it into the driveway. Two other cars were happily occupying that space in the driveway, but now they're on the street and this thing shares the driveway with god's chariot. I tried pushing it, but the brakes are dragging. I managed to push it a little ways and got exhausted, so I went to pull the ebrake... it just rolled down the driveway. So brake job and rebuilding rear calipers is on the list so far.
Story goes, and parts confirm, the initial failure was broken bolts on the harmonic balancer caused the timing to jump. The car came to me with the timing belt on, VC was removed and was off, random bolts were peppered inside the head, IC piping and the airbox and MAF were missing, and the battery was dead, the engine was hanging by one bolt - the one that goes through the timing belt path. And that bolt was bent.
So I figured start with 1st things first - how MUCH did timing jump and was there contact? Figured a compression test should tell me something. Removed glow plugs and threaded in a comp test. I was about to throw the battery in, but I thought maybe try it by hand first. Nothing.... couldn't turn the engine. Figured maybe someone forgot a locking tool somewhere, so I check the usual suspects, nothing is locked. Tried the engine the other way, it goes about 20 degrees and hits again. So valve contact confirmed. BUT... wait... this isn't contact from the initial failure, this is contact caused by someone reinstalling the belt in a random fashion. It becomes clear later why...
wait wut?? that's not looking like TDC!!
at this point #1 lobes are pointing up in a V and injection pump is roughly close to the lock point also. hmmm...
whoever put the TB back on didn't do it right.
here you see the mount is just hanging there on a bent bolt. when I do the TB, I remove the mount outright... base from the chassis, and mount from the block. The mount is a bear to get out, but at least you don't damage stuff.
note the lobes are pointing up on #1
so at this point, I know the engine is way out of time and I don't recall if there is a 'safe' cam position that would allow me to spin the bottom end over. I decide to remove the cam - one because it allows me to close all the valves and do a compression test, and two because it lets me see the lifters clearly and inspect them for damage
the car did not have a hole for punching the cam sprocket loose the way my dad's car does, so I drilled one. I tried a three jaw puller first, but like the rest of the car, the sprocket is an engineering embarrassment. 5 spokes to ensure that a three jaw puller won't fit, and no provisions for using a steering wheel puller style puller either. these cars keep specialty tool manufacturers in high demand.
next up, punched markings in the cam caps to keep them in order and...
#1 cyl intake valve was the one that hit.
Now, remember when I was trying to turn the engine over by hand, the lobes on #1 cyl were pointing up, so there is no way the interference I was feeling at that time was the same interference that caused the failure. So someone must have touched the TB after the fact. Fortunately it doesn't look like they attempted to start the car like that. Admittedly I almost did when the car first came to me, but luckily the battery was dead.
here you see the hole in the TB backing plate where the punch hole should be. There is a slight dimple in the plastic which is how you know where to drill. I use a small brass punch and a light tap... don't wanna distort the sprocket by going ape on it.
I was going to pull the head, turbo, and IM all together.
I attempted to remove the exhaust collector from the turbo but couldn't even get a tool in there straight. The bolts are too close to the pipe so as to ensure a 13mm socket can't fit on there. Shame on me for using an impact socket, but that's what I had handy in a deep 1/2" drive variety. Could have been worse, they could have assembled everything with allen head bolts so that everything rounds off easily. Speaking of which, I went on to remove the intake manifold with the aforementioned allen head bolts My hands were freezing so it was really hard to feel around and stab the 6mm hex heads into the bolts, and I haven't yet evolved a third arm to hold a light and a mirror and a ratchet.
That was it for the night. As you can tell by the quality of the last pic, it was dark already.
Not sure why I even got into this mess... I just hate seeing good cars scrapped.
A side note, I did attempt a compression test. The needle would move on the compression stroke but for some reason my rig wouldn't hold the reading, as the piston went back down, so did my reading. Not quite sure why normally the compression stays on the gauge until I hit the little release button on the side. That was annoying but no matter what, the head has to come off so the comp test may be irrelevant anyways.