Be Excellent To Each Other

Yes, do this. The Forester is up for its belts doing soon, too. Much better to do it than have to find a new engine.

The only time I had a cambelt snap (my Astra GTE), it started right back up again with no damage. The odds against that are quite spectacular, so I wouldn't recommend this as a tactic though.

Nothing huge*. Just down this bridleway **.I hope it is the filter seal gone. or the sump bolt loose. I really do hope. I checked the oil last week and it was OK, but Dr Google says "HG failure!"

**accessing a house half mile down it
*although MrsA has been hitting the speedbumps 50% faster than she should because "since when has it been 20mph?"

Fuck, that's impressive.

I'd have thought it needed a new belt first, at least

My Peugeot 306 Rallye engine smashed itself to shit

I was a good boy and got my Clio belts done when I bought the car.

I got a Rover 220i from a friend of mine that lost a timing belt. Because, as Doc says, that chances of an engine coming out of it unscathed are tiny, I whipped the head off and pulled the valves and every single one was fine. If I'd bothered to do a compression test it would have saved me a load of time and money.

You should buy a Ford Ka. They have chains. In fact, Boy is it your lucky day! I have one! Would you like it? Lovely new alternator, coil spring, passenger door handle, thermostat. And sexy dent in the boot and rear quarter with added fence paint it looks like your old x wing toy with battle damage transfers!

Why don't all cars use chains instead of belts, surely it's just a better way of doing it, considering the carnage when a belt snaps?

My Type-R has a chain, which I'm comfortable with since it routinely spins out to 8200rpm.

How long have you been trying to offload that thing?

Lower cost, noise and weight.

Chains are no guarantee of safety.
There's a very well documented issue with VW 1.8 and 2.0TSI engines from around 2008-2010 where the cam chain tensioner would fail, with exactly the same results as a snapped belt.

Anyway, what you want is a nice Fiat Punto with a 1.2 litre engine from around 2004 as it's a non interference design. If the belt snaps just put a new one on and there will be no damage.

And a nice little earner, selling you new timing belts every four or five years.

OK then, if a non-interference design is a thing, why would anyone go with the interference design?

It's like, belts and interference are about the worst combo they could have settled on, surely?

Better performance at a guess.

Wikipedia says it knows, albeit with quite a lot of 'citation needed'.

Belts are cheap and they can make money out of the servicing, it says.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_engine

Interference is better for performance this says - http://www.theledger.com/article/201212 ... /121209501

I therefore conclude that a timing chain in an interference design is best. Which is good as that's what I've got.

The answer, of course, is gear driven cams. Honda bikes had cam chain issues for years esp with tensioners (for some unfathomable reason), so their high end bikes like the VFR-800 V4 now have gear driven cams (as do most race engines).

Not sure why gear driven cams aren't more common - money/complexity/noise I guess. Apparently the old V6 Capris had them so it's not exactly a new concept.

Gears make for poor response due to weight on the cam and are complicated when you put 4 cams on top of the heads. Chains somewhat more reliable than belts but more expensive to manufacture and replace.
The answer: Wankel engine. 3 moving parts. Of course the tips wear horribly and they drink fuel but we're talking about belts

Nice one Wookie.
I most certainly defer to you in this thread.

The RX-8 is getting pretty cheap now second hand, 231bhp and they look fab IMO.

As you say though, not without their problems, horrible on fuel and emissions, specialist servicing required and so on. Plus they sound crap too.

You're quite right though they are bombproof! I've worked on a car from 1912 that had cam gears and one from 1909 that had a chain! Only belts are relatively new I think...

Doc's old astra - noninterference, not.luck.

Helens old micra, with a chain? Stretched. Twice. And in the middle of the tiny engine.

Nissan are idiots (or evil) for choosing a chain, making it inaccessible because its a a chain, then cost-reducing the chain.

Helens current mk3 mx-5 has started doing a weird bouncing-rev-needle thing when returning to idle with clutch in or matting the gas.

An Italian tune-up SEEMS to have helped, so I will continue with that for now, and add a bottle of kerosene.

But if its down to how I drive it versus how she drives it, what's that? Flywheel? Chain tensioner? Leaky ring?

I don't really mind if the engine doesn't last too much longer, I'm buying it off her to stick an LS in when it pops.

Engine light was the "feed me oil" one. As there is none in there according to the dipstick. I popped to Asda (in the Ka) and bought some. I will pour it in and see how much is on the floor tomorrow. This will tell me if it is the sump or "other", I suppose.*

*classical geneticist, me. Do one thing and wait for the end result. A biochemist would remove each component and examine it to see what it interacted with

How long has it run since the light lit?

Unfortunately seems like the same 'too late' light so many cars have now. May as well be a credit card symbol.

Hopefully its a head gasket so at least thr oil came out the 'top'. Or was the sump and it's dribbled out while off.

To have nothing at all on dipper though. Fingers crossed.

Not that far. 10 mins at most at low revs. I stuck a gallon of oil in and we'll see what happens. The coolant tank isn't frothy so I think it might not be HG. I forgot it eats oil every 7k miles whuch us about when I filled it last.

My m3 had a leaky head gasket - but there was no mixing, it just seeped out the side of the block. Anyway. Good luck.

T'were a genuine question.

I umm and ahh over it regularly and then decide it is too much hassle to get rid and find something else to take me to work in. Given I'd spend £1,500 maximum on a commuting car, I think better the devil I know as I'd just buy a 100k+ mile MGF which would rust to pieces.

The oil level was fine this morning in Big Car so I'll move on to changing the oil filter and see what happens then.

Still going strong!

Whoo!

What am I cooking?

Can't seem to rotate that. Hmm.

I've done it for you, thus making this post look silly.

It's worth it, thanks.

Hmm.

I think it's a trick question, and you're crack testing something.

Could he just be testing crack?

It better be made of pig.

one must cook ones rolls Royce v8 on a low simmer for 6 hours (or untill tender) before removing the liners to avoid damaging the fragile block

Both my Skoda's are unaffected by the emissions issue. For one it was very obvious as it has an EU6 engine (what ever that means!) and the other one is OK after entering the VIN on the site.

Suppose its good news unless they start handing out cheques next year

Look at this shit. LOOK AT IT!

http://www.imgur.com/3tC7Y1D.gifv

edit: What happened to that embedding shizzle?

You just did it wrong.

Wait, does it not crash? I guess it climbed the rocks pretty well, but he does have massive wheels.

Let's see it do this on road tryes:

Surely that's a tilted camera!

They'd have had to spend a long time counter-tilting the trees in the background to look vertical.

Off-road cars be hardcore, yo.

Does someone walk past perpendicular to the 'cliff'?

The blurb claims 45 degrees, which is obviously very steep. But the camera definitely misrepresents that it a bit at times.

Awesome!

(My best guess for this was boiling a chuffing large, very manky chain and about 5 gallons of Gunk )