I've got the back covers off and those belts are ok. I had diagnosed before the AA came that it was a likely cambelt fault. The engine suddenly lost power on the A1, rev counter still showed rpm when in gear. Took it out of gear and coasted round the corner at the junction; rev counter stopped . Turned the key and the engine spun over. Seemed to be low compression, confirmed by the AA. Plugged my test box in, it gave a fault of the cam sensor.
Tomorrow I'll jack up the engine and remove the o/s engine mount etc so that I can remove the cover off the the front belt. I've already loosened the cover, and the belt feels very loose. As it was turning over, I suspect it may not be broken? Possibly the tensioner seized - we will see.
I've had the car about 3 years, 123k miles. When I bought it, (around 90k?), I had proof of cambelt change at around 70k. My initial thoughts were that a rear belt had gone, possibly because they had been untouched (it appears these can be overlooked). Not to be however.
In the boot was a brand new water pump, suggesting that hadn't been changed with the belt, and probably the tensioner wasn't either.
I converted it to lpg, and extended the hose from the heater, at its join under the throttle body, round to the lpg vapouriser (near the osf suspension mount) and back to that joint. I've had a minor leak for a while which I thought was a manifold gasket in the V; now I've got better access I've also found a leak at the join to the heater hose! So this gives me opportunity to not only sort the belt (or whatever) but catch up on a few other things. The list appears to be:
Change all 3 belts anyway.
Water pump.
Belt tensioner.
That heater hose joint.
Thorough check of all hoses etc while I can see them.
Manifold gaskets.
Heads/valves - probably damaged.
Camshaft cover breather (?) hole check/clean.
Anything minor that I get access to as well.
Quite a list, might as well do it all at once. Going to be a busy time, but I'll get it done. Thinking that s/h heads might be cheaper/easier than replacing valves?
Stewart
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