A very lucky escape.

[ceedy]

In my younger inexperienced days had a Renault 18 2 litre that did me well until one day going home the car just stopped, like a wire had come off , nothing sounding serious

got towed home and found the whole belt with no teeth they were all lying in the botom of the cover . . had done 129k miles, belt should have been done at 80k .

Head off , 4 slightly bent valves, took to work next day , popped them in a Collect on a lathe and with a DTi and a tiny tap back straight.
All back together and the car went onto 174k befoire I flogged it on .


C

[FLYING BANANA]

.................................. of a poorly Banana and my courtesy car. The ex'Keith24 "Bumbles" now owned by Matt Darke.

[BRG75]

Lucky indeed.

Sounds like 2 pairs of valves kissed each other, rather than hitting a piston.

Can you remember just how true you managed to get them?

My guess would be about a thou, and did you do a compression test after the head was re-assembled? again, how close.

With a further 44K miles on the engine, clearly good enough, well done.

Regards

Mike

[TourerSteve]

https://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/for...2&d=1619537119
Hope you have put the lottery on this week Bob !
Looking at the photo your camshaft sprocket timing looks reasonable to each other but these sprockets will have more than 12 teeth in contact at any one time ! What will be more interesting to see ,is how much the crankshaft timing has moved to the camshaft as the crankshaft has a lot smaller diameter sprocket ! Hopefully you haven't kissed any valves !
Crucially it appears on start up the belts missing teeth have not been sat on the crankshaft sprocket ! Hopefully the strip down will confirm good news


I think that picture ends the age old debate about changing cambelts on the service schedule as cambelts can and do fail !

[bl52krz]

Its all this warp factor speed you get upto I reckon Bob.

[xsport]

unless the belt was faulty and i would very much doubt that it was i suppose it could have been new. more likely it was your old one put back on in the mistaken belief that it would be ok. as i understand you can reuse a belt with very low miles provided it was direction marked before removal but thats not something that that i would do and especially an engineer or experienced mechanic. good job you made that journey ! !

[first-things-first]

My word. A lucky save indeed. Does it reduce friction with teeth missing.

I think it could be the salty air that did it, had you stayed round these parts the smog would not have affected it.

[FLYING BANANA]

............................... and pulled like a two year old on the A38. Runs as sweet as a nut.

Still a few jobs to be done as the weather was against us today. But I’m happy with the outcome.

[FLYING BANANA]

I supplied the details of the toothless belt to a fellow forum member, Trikey. And I now have the year the belt was produced.

Stand by for a total shock.

The belt, a Dayco, was produced in 2006.

I haven’t made up my mind what to do in contacting the garage that last fitted this belt.

[stevestrat]

Originally Posted by FLYING BANANA

I haven’t made up my mind what to do in contacting the garage that last fitted this belt.

I'd certainly make them aware if nothing else Bob, could be a problem with a batch of belts and in making them aware you might save someone else catastrophic damage.