How screwed am I?

Short story, I forgot I had a ratchet on the crank bolt that I had on there in order to get engine to TDC. Tried starting it. It loosened the crank bolt. Stopped trying to start, but the engine sounded "weird" I am guessing the bolt got so loose it was only turning over the pistons and the timing belt was no longer turning.
It's not like I was sitting there hammering on the starter.

So, I am betting that the bolt came loose enough to let the crank pulley including the timing belt crank pully essentially free spin around the crank snout that was being turned by the starter. Thus resulting in the camshaft and injection pump not spinning while the crank was.

Extremely dumb mistake. And I have a horrid feeling in my stomach right now, but what's done is done. How screwed am I? Can I get by with setting the crank to TDC, putting in a new crank bolt, and setting cam and IP timing?

Thanks for any pointers.

You can try but I wouldn't bother. If you tried the starter a couple times I'm sure it got loose enough to stop moving the valve train.

I would move directly to pulling the cylinder head although you can pull the cam first and look to see if the lifters have any cracks present, but I'd bet you do.

Good luck

Steve

Not the best news, but it's the price of stupid.

So it essentially needs all new valves and lifters? What does that usually run?

And does this usually ruin the pistons, or just the parts in the head?

You might be ok. There's a good chance the crank gear stayed in place on the snout, because of the "D" notch, and also because of the belt track holding all the pulleys in the same plane.

When it happened to me, I immediately cut the starter after hearing the Clink of the ratchet hitting the control arm (or whatever). No damage.

Go ahead and spin the crank bolt all the way off, and inspect the "D" and the snout, to see if they look bad. If it were me, I'd probably get it lined up and try it again. Hope you have a crank holder, or can jimmy one up.

turbodieseldyke said:

You might be ok. There's a good chance the crank gear stayed in place on the snout, because of the "D" notch, and also because of the belt track holding all the pulleys in the same plane.

When it happened to me, I immediately cut the starter after hearing the Clink of the ratchet hitting the control arm (or whatever). No damage.

Go ahead and spin the crank bolt all the way off, and inspect the "D" and the snout, to see if they look bad. If it were me, I'd probably get it lined up and try it again. Hope you have a crank holder, or can jimmy one up.

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Hmm, I'll have to look at that. There was a noticable change in tune while starting. Almost seemed to spin over easier. I'll probably just take it to a shop. I'm confident I could get it going, but at this point I'm feeling too damn defeated to mess with it.

What were you doing, a standard timing belt job? Whenever you remove/replace the belt, the fuel pump is almost always a little bit out of sync. That will make it sound different, until you set the timing (with VAGcom).

I was setting the timing after doing a timing belt. Ratchet was on there to spin the engine in order to get to ip bolts.

The car was running before. Shut it down to tighten down the ip. Stupidity struck.

Did you set the crank at TDC and see where the cam is? Seems the obvious thing to do. Before pulling the sprocket off, of course.

If it isn't where it belongs...

turbodieseldyke said:

You might be ok. There's a good chance the crank gear stayed in place on the snout, because of the "D" notch, and also because of the belt track holding all the pulleys in the same plane.

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Unfortunately the whole mess is held in place by that crank bolt, so even though the sprocket down there has the D notch, it's not like anything is really keeping it where it needs to be. The tension from the belt might help keep it there...but that's a big maybe.

Only thing to do is line it all up and see what you get. You're going to have to pull the crank sprocket to look at the back side, you'll just have to check out each element and see if anything happened.

Go through each piece and check for damage. You'll you know when you pull the valve cover whether you need to go deeper.

Steve

Digging into it now. Once I got the camshaft and ip locked , I had to spin the crank about 120 degree to get to tdc.

Prior to pulling everything apart, I tried to turn it over by hand. It spun some, but bound up with valves hitting the pistons.

So, the pistons definitely would have smacked the valves while cranking...the question is did I shut it down fast enough.

Next step is to take out the cam and look at the followers. Am I just looking for hairline cracks there?

I'm thinking if there's no cracks in the followers, then put timing belt back on and replace the crank bolt and consider myself stupidly lucky.

I just can't imagine not hearing the pistons hitting the valves while cranking...or the starter not binding up. Hell, probably wrong about that, too.

98TeeDeeEye said:

Digging into it now. Once I got the camshaft and ip locked , I had to spin the crank about 120 degree to get to tdc.

Prior to pulling everything apart, I tried to turn it over by hand. It spun some, but bound up with valves hitting the pistons.

So, the pistons definitely would have smacked the valves while cranking...the question is did I shut it down fast enough.

Next step is to take out the cam and look at the followers. Am I just looking for hairline cracks there?

I'm thinking if there's no cracks in the followers, then put timing belt back on and replace the crank bolt and consider myself stupidly lucky.

I just can't imagine not hearing the pistons hitting the valves while cranking...or the starter not binding up. Hell, probably wrong about that, too.

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If you were 120° off there was contact. I wouldn't bother lining things up and trying to start it, might as well just pull the head and get started with that. It'll take a trip to the machine shop or acquisition of a used head, set of bolts and the appropriate cyl head gasket.

Steve

Steve Addy said:

If you were 120° off there was contact. I wouldn't bother lining things up and trying to start it, might as well just pull the head and get started with that. It'll take a trip to the machine shop or acquisition of a used head, set of bolts and the appropriate cyl head gasket.

Steve

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Yeah, 2 followers were completely screwed. Just going to scrap it. The only saving grace for the car was the engine, the body is in pretty sad shape with a rattle can paint job. Found out someone has completed headwork before though, as I didn't notice the head studs when I did the timing belt 700 miles ago.

Benefit for you guys, as I'll have a K2 vagcom and metalnerd ahu timing belt tools up for sale shortly.

Sad story. I was just thinking how I've put $1000 into a car worth $1500 on a good day myself. If you've got the time theres a lot of parts you can sell here. Better they live on than go to the crusher.

Personally, I'd toss a used head on it.

-Todd

^^^ What Todd said ^^^
Especially if it's got studs. That's at least $20 you won't have to spend on new bolts. (Silver linings... Silver linings...)

ToddA1 said:

Personally, I'd toss a used head on it.
-Todd

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Available time has been in short supply. The rear suspension needs to be completely redone, as the rear tires are scrubbing causing chunking from the treadblocks. It needs the dash tore out and the blend door fixed. The rockers are shot.

I took a chance on a car that was owned (and I'm founding out was abused) by a high school kid that hammer modded the pump to the point it had a lope idle and smoked like a freight train. After the injector line split and now this dumb mistake, I'm just done with it. Kinda poked around on line and found a head for $300. Might throw that on it and sell it as a running car, but it's still a basket case. Just happy I got it cheap enough that breaking even is a realistic thought. If it were just the rockers and rear suspension, that'd be easier to manage...but at this point I'm tapping out.