Why is my engine falling out?

[Thread Bear]

Ah. The more you have the busier you are. They are running late anyway. Then it took most of the morning to get the Curlew in the van delaying them further from a 5 o'clock start to a 10.30 one. The Salamander IC (off eBay) has not been delivered from Liverpool as it should have been, another extra trip. They will be pushed to get the container filled and finished, I think.

[Thread Bear]

See if these pics will work.

[Thread Bear]

OK we get somewhere with pics at last.

You can see the cam belt has been polishing the inner mounting. The other pic shows the amount of dust created by the collapse and the dreaded plunger. Very nearly a bit of a disaster from Pilchard Productions somewhere.

[DavidRutherford]

I have had this exact same issue before now on a 405TD. The bolts that hold the mounting to the side of the block/head had been over-torqued to the point of near failure. Went over a big bump in the road and three snapped, leaving the engine held in on one bent M8 stud. The cambelt tensioner plunger shot out, the cambelt came loose and the engine was being held up by the bottom engine mount (which it isn't designed to do of course.)

There may have been swearing.

[Thread Bear]

Not time to do the entire LHM pump yesterday afternoon. So had a further look at the mounting issue.

Finally found all the fasteners on the mounting brackets and removed the main ali casting from the centre of the cam belt race. The bolts have indeed sheared off. So that's an engine out to remove the flush bust ends in the block. Now I am not an engineer but to me the material these bolts are made of looks wrong. Its a crystalline structure suggested some sort of toughened heat treatment. I can see that these might need to be machine steel and as such would expect to see cap heads. They do not shear without considerable force. These have fractured from a failed thread in. So cheap crap in terms of hard metal, as it is not free of internal faults meaning it cannot take a hit.
So question. Are these the original bolts? Without a magnifying glass I struggle to read the embossed letters on the dished head. Looks like S I F 8 8. If these are original then its mod time as clearly this is going to happen again. Either that or a couple of dowls are needed, can be stronger than any bolt, to locate the item. A far better engineering solution. Missed that one Monsieurs. One up to Les Rosbiefs.

Secondly I see no reason to have a plunger fitted since it merely bares on a flange stuck out from the engine block. It achieves nothing as it is, save a gold star for getting it all in there without it driving you round the twist. There are two turrets sitting idle that probably should have something on or round them. I therefore still think Mr Bodge has attempted to do a cam belt and fundamentally failed. Had a few bits left over, which he buried in the garden in the hope no one would notice. Yet despite all this the cam-belt is delightfully tensioned and seems ready to run. So not understanding what is going on there at all. Need to see what it should be like.

Anyway the upshot of all this is the engine needs to come out. That is not happening this side of winter so the car goes for moth balls or down the road for someone else to play with.

[Tinkley]

8.8 grade bolts should be fine. If they had come a bit loose or some tit had put in 4.4 grade.....
Normally when you look at an 8.8 it is a semi forged structure with fine grain on the outside and a coarser one in the middle, but not a massive difference. There are sub standard bolts and fasteners out there which claim to meet the relevant DIN, BS, ISO standards. I've had a lot of stainless screws just chew the heads with the correct driver in them. I now get a few from a supplier and test them if it is for a biggish job ie using 60+ screws. Proper rolled stainless self tappers should be about 90% tensile of an 8.8 bolt. SS bolts are usually rated at 6.6 so you get improved properties from the rolling.

Whether you need 10.9 or 12.9 I would doubt it, just good quality 8.8s should be fine. I wonder if they came loose and then something has rubbed/worn against them until they sheared. There aren't to many really poor crap bits in the important parts of the BX so it is possible someone changed them.

[Thread Bear]

Sorry the other reason I think they are not correct is they are threaded to within 3 mm of the shoulder. I would expect the originals to be threaded to a plain area of shaft some 2 cm long to the shoulder. Like Citroen would be using thousands of these and normally threads cost money. I would expect them to specify the part rather than buy off the shelf.

These do not look like strong or particularly hard bolts to me. I no longer trust fasteners, even with labels on. Cheap imports are just not up to standards. Self tappers that loose their heads and all. Its like screw drivers. Why do modern ones break when Grandfather's old inherited one soldiers on with a new flat filed into it. Hmm.. Box wood handles. If they could make good hard steel then, why can they not now. I latterly sourced my bolts and tools from Mannhiem where they had some fantastic stuff being cleared and very reasonable prices. Getting harder to find now though.

[Tinkley]

Cost of a special fastener in Peugeot/Citroen quantities is absolutely naff all. I have had custom ones made and custom finishes. At 50k units upwards it might be 0.01 of a penny extra, probably less.
Standard plain shaft with 'X' threaded are v common especially where you don't want the thread to 'cut' the component it is mountings lug or whatever. Still does not stop some idiots using full thread versions as a substitute with attendant wear and catastrophe.

I agree on tools though, you get what you pay for. I do a fair bit of woodwork (and GRP) and my old Record No 4 Plane is fine. British made from around 1977 and once set up it has given years of good service. If you want a good Plane now you need to buy a Lie Nielsen (USA) or Veritas (Canadian), of course you are over £250 quid for a tool that will last more than a lifetime. When you can buy a shitty thing from somewhere in the far east for £25 ....
Mind you the Marples chisels are still good steel so there are good British tools out there. Saws, well buy the Japanese pull saws, once you've used them you will not go back. The Japs make good chisels too, right down to 1.5mm width. Needle files - Switzerland. German stainless kitchen knives are a good grade, tougher than English ones but still hold a good edge.

I still have quite a few tools my grandfather had ( he sold machine tools to the Russians prior to 1917) and boxwood handled chisels and carving tools. They are fine quality and I am very fond of one particular short screwdriver which has taken all the abuse I have given it over many years without complaint. Funny how it has survived so long when other have bent, twisted, chewed up their heads etc...

[Thread Bear]

So are you saying these bolts are none original, as I suspect?

I have three Stanley planes, forget the names but big. little a small. A Shoulder plane. Two wing planes. Loads of other stuff. All hold very good blades. Much of this stuff is on its fourth generation of use. Much is made so that even tactile contact is a pleasure. A spirit level with bevelled brass plate, and such. I could happily go back to be a better cabinet maker than I learned to be. Again its from father to son when TV etc was not the diversion it is today. You got out and made stuff. Your dad would help/supervise and you learned basic engineering and how to look after your tools. If you dad knows naught then your greatly inconvenienced in becoming handy. If I could not do all these things I would hang myself from boredom, except I would need someone to tie the knot for me and make sure the rope was strong and not to long! Argh! Cull useless people!!!! Hmm, perhaps nut cutlets for lunch might be in order.

[Tinkley]

I don't have that engine but maybe someone who has changed the cam tensioner in their one might comment. My gut feel would be that the full threaders are not original. They don't use full threaders on the starter motor mount bolts (1.6 petrol) or they would not last long.

[mat_fenwick]

The two mushroom-headed turrets are for locating the belt cover on, with a piece of rubber tube to stop the cover being pushed in too far. I changed a tensioner last week but couldn't say for certain what bolts were used - I'd have thought it would ring alarm bells if they were threaded to the heads though.

[Thread Bear]

So what is the plunger pushing on and why. Seems completely unused from what I can see. No pipe or other bridging item in there. Thinks, are all these engines the same. Check engine number. Have we got a funny fitted out with a different sort of car? Thus a different belt assembly. Pumping bit is standard issue BX. So much simpler if I was not packed as manuals would be to hand.

[mat_fenwick]

There's a spring down (up?) the bore of the hole in the bolted on ally casting, so it's just pushing on the bottom of the hole.

This might show a little better:

[Thread Bear]

Looks like two bits missing on this engine then. Yet it arrived with the belt tight and it is still tight, though I dare not attempt to start it. That suggests that somewhere where this car has been stood there are some bits! Or one is jammed under the idler? I say this as the act of jacking the engine up to align may have finished of the failing bolts into the block and it is at that point the whole caboodle has fallen apart terminally. If so rather than bad luck, its probably really rather good luck I am not looking at a totally discomebooberated engine for no better reason than Toby Twonk mucking about with it prior to my ownership. A picture tells a thousand words. Thanks.

If the car stays I will do my own rebuild and then be Longcot's expert at XUD timing, assuming I can get the broken bolt ends out. Should be a good chance of that. I am not to keen on the reverse thread toughened stud extractors. My bud, who is a fine welder, normally spots a head on and they come out, but not always...

[Tinkley]

Agreed the 'Easy outs' don't work well in my experience. My preference (without a welder) is to try and drill a slot across the bolt and get a square shaft driver in there to unscrew it. Doesn't always work but pretty good on M5 upwards. Sometimes I've had to cobalt drill the bolt and peel out the thread but you need to hold a good centre for this.

Reckon a welded blob/head will sort it fine.