Timing belt broke. What next? 96 850T

850TurboTurtle · Post by **850TurboTurtle** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 5:12 pm

The water pump froze, the belt slipped and the engine lost power, then stopped running moments later. My son was driving and said he didn't hear any knocking of the thing beating itself to death, but when I opened the inspection cover the belt was off the pump.

Is there any chance at all it came off at low enough rpm to not beat it to death internally? Or is the only next step to remove the head and start from there?

Thanks for advice. Not a good year to have a big expense, so ideas appreciated.

Post by **abscate** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 5:15 pm

Reinstall belt, pray , and check compression

About a 20 % chance of no head damage.

850TurboTurtle · Post by **850TurboTurtle** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 6:05 pm

Those are better odds than I hoped for Abscate... Thanks for the input. I'll post results next week when I get it home.

Post by **MadeInJapan** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 6:46 pm

Similar thing happened to me several years ago- it was the tensioner roller cover that vibrated off and into the timing belt path...and most if not all valves were bent. Keep your fingers crossed but I'd have someone that can line up the marks and correctly put the belt on tackle the job to even check for proper compression. On these engines, top dead center isn't top dead center- it's a smidgen off and you could be 180 degrees off on a cam and the mark be right. The good news is you'll get a new water pump and new belt out of it (which means another 70K miles until timing belt time again)...bad news is, you may have a head-rebuild in your future (which is most likely)...another upside is if the worst has happened (and you want to keep the car), you will have renewed valves, lapped properly and it would be a good time to fit the valves with new valve stem seals! I would recommend using your original head- make sure they use the cam holding tool and do the job properly. I got a rebuilt head from Clearwater when I first had my job done but the guy doing the work was an idiot and didn't use a cam holding tool and warped the good head that was sent...ended up taking my original head to a guy that was reputable who rebuilt things from there. It was what I should have done to begin with. Would have saved me a lot of $$ in the long run. Anyway, good luck with all of this. I suppose it's a weighing of the pros and cons...is the car nice enough to put money into- if you have even 1 bent valve...it's really about the same job whether one is bent or all are bent...In my case, I said YES- it was still cheaper to do that than to have a car payment. Finger's crossed for you.

Post by **cuhfs** » Fri Mar 25, 2016 7:32 pm

Not to be a one upper but my timing belt did not break... when my serpentine belt broke it wrapped around the crank. Had the car abt 1 week. I did the belts (non-OEM). Now will...Always use OEM..! The timing belt was still on the car, remained in place and looked fine. The car however skipped time and the valves were bent. Fingers crossed for you too. In my case I did my first removal and replacement and learned a lot. Not easy but it worked out, was a bit nervous doing such a big job. Never could have done it without the MVS family of members and Robert DIY.