broken down already, with an expensive tow truck bill

[Fatmobile]

I heard the hydrolic heads don't get as damaged with a belt problem.

Pull the bad lifter and see if it got crushed.

[82vdub]

On the bent valve issue, I was thinking about that earlier today. I've never dealt with a bent valve issue on a VW engine (or any other major engine issue like this), but since these engines are so tight and the piston actually comes out of the block, if you bent a valve, you would not be able to turn the engine over unless there was a cooresponding hole in the piston. So, even though the follower doesn't come back up, you may have a follower that has collapsed, but not a bent valve. With a collapsed follower, that would render that cylinder effectively dead and you would drop power accordingly. Anyways, my original thought on this post was that you could end up bending a valve, but I would think it would cause lots of damage to the actual piston, if you are still able to turn the engine over.

[JRM]

Woodrat,
I here ya on the cash- worse comes to worse park it with alot of rat poisen under the hood and a dri z air on the rear floor to keep it nice and fresh.
PM me when you start to work on it, i bet your hydro head is ok- I think the slack just slowly destroed a valve or two but since it was just very loose and not borken you most likley avoided major damage. I too just used my fingers as a fancy tension gauge, only I re-checked it 3 times as the belt broke in and yup- i was able to twist it more and more each time I checked. At 5,000 miles I put 3 of those large yellow spring clips on each sproket to hold things in place, loosened up the tenisoner and picked up the slack, then spun the engine around a few times and did it again and again until i was only able to twist the belt 1/4 the way between the pump and cam. I think 1/2 way is spec but i got her tight, it wine'ed for a a bit but is now very happy
I run my 1.6 hard, floor it in netural to smoke tailgaters and all sorts of abuse and it thrives on it. Whatever you spend on this car is well worth it in the long run, one large piece of advice is to buy the parts from this very page, they are all OEM and fit perfectly- do what I did and make it a short commuter to de-bug it and gain trust. Here is a Photo of mine the day brought it home after I rescued it at a yard sale for $42.00 But it needed a complete rebuild due to 280psi compression and many other parts.

[libbybapa]

If you over-tighten the belt, you will destroy the injection pump bushings and the intermediate shaft bushings. Both are very expensive and labor intensive to fix.

Was the cam timing off? Had it jumped a tooth? If not, then you might be thinking the sky is falling when it was really just an apple.

Andrew

[JRM]

well that explains why there is a few drops of diesel on top of my water pump- i bet my tight belt had something to do with the belt side pump seal

[82vdub]

I rescued it at a yard sale for $42.00

Geez. Only difference between you're Oregon location and my Wisconsin location is that you get a nice relatively rust free car. We get cars with rust to the bottom of the door glass for $150 around here............ For an avid car lover, that's one of the very sad points about living in the rust belt.

[surfcam]

I grabbed an 1.6TD out of a Ontario car a while back. I don't know how much of a pain its go to be to take apart. I use to live in Ontario. One day my neighbor offered to give us a ride to school. I step into the back seat and went right through the floor. I had to yell at him to stop until I could get my foot out.

[woodrat]

The car did seem to have slipped a tooth on the belt, and when I tried to turn the engine over by turning the pump pulley bolt with a wrench, it slipped another tooth, so I tried to get it back to normal, but it still wouldn't run.

What would cause an almost brand new lifter to collapse? Do I need a special tool to remove a lifter?

I am home now and am going back to Portland tomorrow with a trailer to get the car. If I don't have to pull that head off again, I would be stoked.

Another thing I forgot to mention: I had to reuse the tensioner. On two different trips to the parts store, they were out of stock and the tensioner that came out looked great, spun freely and didn't wobble, so I reused it. I don't know if that was part of the problem or whether I just should have rechecked that belt a few times after it was warmed up.

I just didn't know about that. I have done a lot of timing belts on a lot of different cars, including recently on my gas 1.8 jetta and I have never had one slip like this, and never had to go back and recheck it.

[ahistand]

Man I feel bad for your experience.....especially if you're having to be pretty tight with the dough.....our dollar doesnt go too far anymore does it?

When you say the belt "slipped", what exactly do you mean? It can hardly slip over the tooths of the sprockets....unless it is ridiculously loose. Is is possible your cam sprocket came loose? I read what you said about cleaning the taper fit and all.....how much did it get torqued down? The spec is 33 ft/lbs but Andrew (Libbybapa) and I had a discussion about this one day and he feels like 45 ft/lbs is more appropriate for this cam bolt.

If your motor is a hydraulic head, those lifters will take quite a bit of abuse before a valve or piston is even damaged....so you may be able to pull the cam, pull that lifter out and see what the deal is, and hopefully just replace that lifter.

Let us know what happens.

[woodrat]

The belt was "ridiculously" loose, I think. There was a whole lot of slop in between the cam and the pump, like you could almost twist the belt all the way around on itself.

I went to around 45-50 pounds on that cam bolt, and it was very clean.

I hope folks are right about that lifter, I would sure rather not have to pull the head off again.

I have a new belt, tensioner and the pump pin and cam lock tools in will call at the parts house to be picked up tomorrow. I will have to read up on that lifter business.

[ahistand]

Sounds good. Hope you can get it fixed up right. When you put the tensioner on, you tensioned it by rotating it clockwise, right? If not, that is the way its supposed to go. Also, be sure to check your timing sprocket bolted to the end of the crank. Make sure it hasn't worked loose and the bolt is tight. I don't know what would make your belt come that loose.

[surfcam]

Just a crazy theory. The bolt that holds the tensioner pulley is really a stud that is threaded at both ends. If the hole in the block or stud itself is damaged its possible the tensioner pulley might have came loose because not enough tension is being exerted on the pulley to hold it in place. You should be able to tell this by looking at the stud and seeing if the nut is bottoming out.

[JRM]

I also used blue lock tight on every bolt and the tensioner stud end and bolt. I remember fat warning me about the diesel vibration and to make sure the crank and cam bolts were very secure.
I also want to thank everyone on this board as Im now pulling the trans from anotehr project car ( infinity G20 ) that has a 5th gear issue due to a common issue on the nissan B13 trans, noone on those boards are nearly as friendly as this diesel community.

[woodrat]

Sounds good. Hope you can get it fixed up right. When you put the tensioner on, you tensioned it by rotating it clockwise, right? If not, that is the way its supposed to go.

I just looked at a picture I took of that belt before I put the cover on, and no, I tensioned it by rotating the tensioner counter clockwise. Guess I wasn't so smart about following instructions after all. I totally missed that in the bentley, although I see it there now.

doh!

[woodrat]

UPDATE:

Pulled the cam today, and popped out the follower. It was fine and the valve was stuck in the down position.

Pulled the head, and found the valve head had broken off and is jammed up in behind the valve seat. Head all beat up, piston all beat up, cylinder wall scored.

So, it looks like I probably won't even be able to save the head, which I had a very hard time even finding.

Too bad I'm not made of money.

I'm kind of surprised at how much damage was done, since the timing only seemed to be off by a tooth or two on the belt.