1.9D - Sudden loss of power.

[macplaxton]

As posted in my intro thread, I'm trying to fix a BX 1.9D auto.

It's a friends car and here's a bit of background:

1992
circa 130K miles on clock
cambelt last done 91K in 2005.
tensioner wasn't done.
Mobil 1 used, last changed 9K ago.

Working fine up until October. Whilst doing a "three figure speed" there was a sudden loss of power. Put in neutral and engine off, before coasting to halt.

RAC man spends an hour or so on it. Starts but with apparent white smoke. Car is recovered to house and usual garage comes out to look at it. New belt is put on, but apparently jumped. Camshaft is supposedly stiff. Later, car is towed a mile down the road to a lock-up and left pending my arrival.

Chew on that for a moment. I'll be back with more info.

Cheers

[jonathan_dyane]

Welcome, nice choice of motors there...

Do the garage mean that the timing had jumped before hand, or that it happened after they fitted the belt? If so, 1) They're shit and 2) It's their fault.

That said, I've made the mistake too many times of believing the 'back story', I'd be going back to basics, starting by whipping off the rocker cover, and seeing how things look. Usual state of affairs when valves hit pistons is broken cam and bearing caps.

*IF* cam and caps are unscathed, next step is to move engine to TDC and lock flywheel with rod through hole behind starter, and ensure that M8 bolts will fit through the timing holes in the cam and injector pump pulleys.

Best,
Jonathan.

[jonathan_dyane]

/\ it seems the world filter has an unfortunate effect on expressing metric thread sizes; I meant M eight bolt, rather than a bolt you are friendly with...

[macplaxton]

Thanks for the reply Jonathan.

Okay, the 'back story', I was ignoring too, but just taking some notes as to how the original problem occurred.

I got a chance on the 5th Jan to have a quick look before I flew back.

Tried turning the cam. Moves okay from my perspective and not "stiff".

Looked at the hydraulic pump v-belt and that's seen better days. Intact, but missing some cogs.

Cam belt on passenger seat (AFAIK was on the car until power loss) looks not bad with no missing teeth. New cam belt partially refitted from Unipart box looks okay too.

Pulled the cover and cam caps all intact and camshaft in one piece.

Proceeded to find the timing having got 3 x M8 x 90 bolts. Got the cam locked into position. Then got the two M8 bolts locked in the injector pump.

Spent ages trying to find the hole behind the starter motor until I removed it (working workshop manual-less).

No trouble turning engine forwards or backwards as far as the open valve would allow.

At that point daylight had well gone, but was keen to continue. Got the belt on, but couldn't work out what the tensioner was doing or not. Seemed locked in an open position. I presume that it can be set this way to help the belt on?

At that point it was 5.30pm. I had a crap torch and gave up.

So my current thinking is that there's very little wrong with it besides maybe the tensioner. If it jumped causing the initial loss of power, then it hasn't jumped so far as to cause collision of valve/pistons, but just rough running. I'm going to have another stab at it, but before I head back, arm myself up with enough information so I'm not working so 'blind'. More used to working with old-school engines with chains and petrol powered.

[jonathan_dyane]

Well it all sounds promising so far; it is far more usual for the cam or bearing caps to break than the valves to bend.

The tensioner is spring loaded, although is locked when the belt is fitted. It is a more rugged item than that fitted to lesser vehicles, and personally I have never had to replace one, although some do as an insurance policy. With it disengaged you should be able to spin its pulley to feel for roughness, and also feel for play, and the same with the idler pulley.

What 'may' have happened is, that the belt was improperly tensioned when fitted, and became looser as it wore until it slipped, but I would expect so see evidence of this on the original belt. Further, the tensioner is of such a design that unless you're particularly daft, messing it up is difficult...

The following image shows the way the tensioner looks (I know it's hard to see looking down the inner wing)

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/8854/xudbelt.jpg

I imagine as it is slack it is currently pushed back on its spring (spring not visible in diagram) and one of the bolts nipped up to retain it. Once you're confident it is on right, slacken both bolts, and you will see the tensioner spring into position. Retighten one of its bolts, turn engine four times than make sure timing pin/bolts go back in, then release tensioner again for final tensioning, then tighten both bolts.

All should then be well, and you can then discover whether it was a timing belt issue that was causing the issue or whether the original problem was something different altogether...

[ken newbold]

All of the above sounds good to me.

The engines will run but badly is the belt has jumped one tooth. Two teeth and the valves will strike the pistons.

The only thing I'd add to Jonathan's description is, it is possible to get the engine (crankshaft) 180 degrees out. So if when turning the engine over manually as stated, you find the valves are striking, take the belt off and turn the crankshaft one full turn.

If you need anyone to chat to when you're attempting this, PM me your phone number and I'll talk you through what I can.

Regards ken

[mat_fenwick]

If it helps, then here is a photo of the belt arrangement with the engine out of the car...not that I removed the engine to do the timing belt!

[macplaxton]

Thanks for all the help and advice so far.

It would appear that there isn't too much wrong in a mechanical sense with this engine. At the point I gave up, the second bolt must have been keeping the tensioner back.

I'll probably get another look at it when this cold snap is over.

[macplaxton]

Right I'm going to have another bash at this on Wednesday morning when I arrive.

90mm M8 bolts are a bit long, so after some research, I understand the 3 bolts for locking should be 40mm long.

Plan is to hook the new belt up and get the tensioner into position now I know where both the fixings are. *If* it starts ok, I'll pop down the road to AEP and pick up some bits:

Timing belt kit
Water pump
Aux belt
Hydro belt
Fuel Filter
Oil Filter
Oil
Coolant
Thermostat
Camshaft seals
Camshaft cover gasket

That's the plan anyway, hope to get all that done on Wed/Thu and give it a good blast on before I leave again on Friday night. Am I being overly optimistic?

Is there anything else I've forgotten that I might need, besides the 16mm deep socket and 7.5mm or 8mm drill bit to locate the flywheel?

[tom]

I find that the time spent removing the starter motor in order to locate the timing peg is well spent. It makes the job a lot easier.
Good luck with it. I have had a belt jump at idle without damaging the valves on the 1.7TD engine but the 1.9 was flat out if it was an auto. Three figure speeds suggest that you will have done serious damage. white smoke sounds like one at least of the cylinders is not working due to blown gasket, bent valve or some other cause. As you were clearly trying to see how fast it would go, you knew the risks. Turn the cam and see whether the HP pump turns at the same time, both forwards and backwards. You'll be unlucky if it does because the valves are likely to have bent instead. Remove the cam cover to check the clearances. Expect a couple to be rather wide.

[macplaxton]

Starter motor was off when I left it last. It does make an enormous difference when you can see what you're aiming at!

Picking up from where I'd left off. Cam was check and intact. HP belt was missing a few cogs, but intact. New belt hooked up. Locked cam with shorter bolts I'd brought along with me. Located flywheel with 7.5mm drill bit. Slacked tensioner pivot stud nut and tensioner pinged into position. Pins removed and cranked turned 2 revolutions. Pinned flywheel and then pump and cam. Tightened up pivot nut on tensioner. Replaced starter and reconnected battery. Fired first one over the top. (been doing nothing since late Oct last year) Idles fine. Suspension rose okay. Switched off engine after a couple of minutes as car is rear-in lock-up. Belt tension seems fine.

After five or ten minutes, started a second time no bother and seemed to respond to the trottle okay.

A few things noted:

The old belt has not lost any teeth and is not physically damaged. 46/47K Gates belt

Tensioner bolt which sits in slotted part of tension will not tighten up. Someone has fitted a locknut onto it and thread looks to have been crossed in the past and was held tight by this alternate means.

Couldn't find the V5C, but just scraped the 3 month time limit for saying it never arrived in the post. The DVLA despatched it on the 26th Nov 09. On the 24th Nov 09, it cherished plate was put on retension and reallocated it's old VRM. Disabled tax was surrendered. Put on SORN. MOT reissued with old VRM. V5C issued on old VRM. 6 month tax put on it today (well I'm away Friday, so no option to postpone the test run ). Will put old plates back on tomorrow and give it a shakedown.

*just to clarify tom, and in my defence it wasn't me guv who was caning it at the time of the incident, it was a "respectable" gentlemen in his 50s who should have known better. I'm 35 and tend not to kick the ^^*% out of cars because I don't like fixing them after they have broken.

Preliminary testing tomorrow. Owner will keep if confindence is restored in cars reliability is restored. MOT due St George's day and I intend to look doing a belt / tensioner / idler / waterpump job on another flying visit when it's NOT actually snowing!

Personally I'm beginning to think it's jumped 1 tooth and there really is feck all wrong with it. Proof of pudding and all that. Will update you all on progress tomorrow.

Cheers.

PS I'd did start it a third time when I got back from getting a tax disc with the owner. Refused to start, but that was down to a poor connection, the positive battery clamp being a bit rubbish. Sounded okay to him.

[ken newbold]

Good luck with this.

[Linegeist]

It's the white smoke that'd be worrying me. Generally indicative of coolant getting into the combustion chamber(s) somewhere .......

Mind you - at that kind of speed, it could've just been the engine shedding umpteen years of accumulated crap through its exhaust ports I s'pose. It's just that I'm never that lucky............

[macplaxton]

No unusual smoke signals are being emitted now.

Oil and filter have been changed today. No drama going into town earlier. Behaving rather normally and no excitement has been forthcoming.

I'm a bit stumped how it's taken my non-diesel non-expert hand and two trips from Dublin to time the belt and get it started. The garage that normally fixes it is quite good by all accounts. Granted, there's a wee thing or two that can be done to it, but I'll save that for when its not p***ing down outside. I'm still waiting for something to go wrong, will go out on a more rigorous run in a minute.

All being well, I can do my thermostat and fuel pipe on my Volvo tomorrow, before I go.

And that's to Mr O'Leary of Ryanair for doing such cheap flights. If I didn't chuck spanners at this BX, I'd fear it would be another brand new fridge by now.

[macplaxton]

Just to clarify, I didn't do everything on the pre-visit wish list.

I peeked done the rad filler to check the coolant level. It was done prior to firing it. I was low, quite low, at least half way down the rad low. All this car had done was do nowt for nearly 5 months. So I topped up with anti-freeze on a bleed later basis. This morning it was checked prior to pulling in out of the lock-up. Still where it was. And no, I didn't bleed it. The went maybe 4 miles one way and 4 miles back to change the oil and filter. No bother with car. Had grub and went on the evening run. Did a mixture of roads including M-way and covered some 35-40 miles. before the coolant level light came on with the STOP light. No temp warning lights visible. No cold heater, heating was fine throughout. As on M-way carried on a few miles at reduced speed until just past Glasgow airport. Let it cool down and topped it up. No pressure discharge on removal of cap. Level was just below the level sensor as left hand corners would extinguish it.

Set off again and it did about mile and a half and the light came on again. Carried on to city centre and stop for a couple of hours at a friend's house and went to top it up on leaving. Took another quantity of water and ran it for a bit with the cap off to clear a few burps. Noticed a bit of oil mist from the cam cover at the back, so shall replace gasket in the morning. Drove 8 miles back and coolant level light stayed out.

It does beg the following questions:
Why was it low after sitting in the lock-up for 5 months following cambelt mishap?
Why did it take so long 40-50 miles to trip the level sensor?
Why did it not take so long at all to trip it again?
Why did it then no trip on the way home? (Which was pretty much the same distance after the previous fill which did trip it)

I'll check the level again when I get up in the morning. Something is not quite right. Cambelt hasn't jumped though I'll check for leaks and bleed it properly this time.