oh dear... As a few of you are aware i had an unusual rattle for sometime that i couldnt locate,.... cambelt snapped and looked as though it had never had a change.... here's why,,,,
it would appear my premature cambelt faliure was caused by a knackered idler so word of advice guys if you have an L-series, chaage the timing belt idler and tensioner when you change your timing belt or your gonna have 1 hell of a repair bill... i dont know if its advised to change them at the same time as the belt but its definitely worth forking out the extra 50 quid for peice of mind!

pics as promised!
awaiting collection

the idler to the right as you can see is now shattered,, the bearings exploded taking the wheel wth it,, if you look at the tesioner (green bit on the left) you can see lots of silver spots.. this is where the ball bearings from the idler had bounced off it so must have been like a gun going off!


another pic of dler remains, however this time you can see the cambelt dust and the flakes of metal dust everywhere


if you look to the left of the tensioner (green bit), on the very left hand edge of it you can see a shiny ball bearing jammed against it!


heres a pic of the crank pulley, you can actually see the scorched marks on the block just under it where the pulley for some unknown reason tried to cut its wy into the block!

cambelt remains!


another shot of cambelt,,, note the uneiven wear indicating the idler has had a problem for a while!

Got the crank pulley off then....

So much for "no, theres no cam belt dust" when I asked...."is the tensioner OK?"

Are you going for the replacement engine or a rebuild of that one?

andyb66 said:

Got the crank pulley off then....

So much for "no, theres no cam belt dust" when I asked...."is the tensioner OK?"

Are you going for the replacement engine or a rebuild of that one?

Click to expand...

pmsl,,, funnily enough the crank pulley came of with a ratchet strap and a bench... dont ask lol

the dust was all under the bottom cover and non at the top which was odd!

the tensioner appears fine but im going to change it anyway to be on the safe side as its bound to have some wear due to the condition of the belt surface......

ive managed to get an engine with 101k on the clock out of a rover for 50 quid... gets delivered tomorrow so the forst job is cambelt, idler and tensioner lol...... im also gonna compression test it before it goes in to make sure the head gasket / piston rings are alright before it goes in to be on the safe side then rebuild the old engine as a spare.