Had this lovely low mileage porto recovered today.Suspected cambelt failure.


A quick look under the bonnet revealed the cam cover had been pulled away from the block and what looked like the cam pulley.


closer look revealed this horrifying sight.
Cam hasnt seized,no work on the head or cams has taken place.Belts replaced on time.



The centre of the pulley has sheared away from the outer.



Never seen this before and is rather concerning .

I've been around cars and bikes for many years, but never seen anything like that before. Hopefully it's a one off!

Never seen anything like it either.

There has to have been some existing damage to the pulley and vibration has finished it.

It would be interesting to see some close ups when you get it off.

Tuned John ?

No completely standard

I have seen a camwheel shear off the dowel but not break like that. I suspect a foregin object got in there somehow or the camwheel just had a flaw that has finally let go!

Stick on a new one and see what happens!

I'm pretty sure this happened to sparco on the original engine that was in his car. However many years ago that was now.

This someone off the forum? I seem to remember a post the other day about a twang.....

is this a prank?

what happened just before that broke?

did he over rev it on a down shift?

HOW???

Exhaust cam seized in the head?

More importantly Marco, tell us what's happening to your car.

Top secret

Is that the same as whats happening with mine?

Ross

Oi, stop working on Marco's car and get busy on mine - got a show to go to Sunday!

Mine's still at my work... getting it transported to Joe's at the weekend... then we shall go from there!!

Biggenz - stop butting in

Sadly it's not a prank. I was only doing 20-30mph when it let go. Only had the car 3 months and i'm gutted.

JBT is still investigating the cause and i'm sure he'll be along to update shortly but there have been no foreign objects found so far. It'll be back on the road soon though.

To top it off I also got a parking ticket for leaving it in a bus lane!! I did leave a note in the window explaining why it was there. I don't think i'll bother buying a lottery ticket this week.

Sorry to hear Mike, I thought I had read a pinging noise thread by someone...

Fingers crossed for minimal damage.

Marco get a Barbz engine and youll have no more issues.



Nigel,Cam isnt seized,moves freely.
Theres no rotational marks or damage to the pulley other than the obvious.

Used the bore camera today and theres markings on all the inlet valves and the buckets are all down.
Very unlucky.



Also had this in today

Non start.
No cam signal.Great just a sensor.....Not exactly.

Took the covers off and



belt shredded.All aux belts fine.....

on closer inspection found this.Magnetic piece of metal.


Looked at the phase sensor,which has half of it missing



Timings out and knocked all 20 valves.

Never seen this before.I can only assume that the amount of corrosion has caused the inside of the pulley to catch the sensor.

Terror.

so are we saying a badly refit cam cover is the latest paranoia????

It's filling me full of fear already!!

Was this the car I spotted the other night parked outside Dominoes at Banner Cross?

Gutted for you!

I remember seeing pics of it too,I reckon it must have been around the time I got my Sprinty which was 5 or 6 years ago. I looked through my folders of Coupé related stuff but don't see any pictures although I could have sworn that kept some of it .

Baz

No,the cam cover is in a fixed position, there's no way this would cause it.

Those pulleys are very strong but are also cast which is why its failed in the way it has.
Until its stripped there's no conclusive evidence as to the cause of the failure.
I have known belts wrapped round these and also various failures down the years which have given this pulley a whack and even stripped the teeth off,but as to why its gone i will update when i know more.

Nothing new under the sun
Coupe 20V N/A:

I took one of an old head today and put it on the press.With it clamped i then put the force as the belt would exert on it.

After around 150-200kg it shattered into 4 pieces.
Less than a quarter of a tonne caused it to fail.
As it turns out its very weak indeed.
The inlet took over a tonne and stayed intact before my clamp gave way.

It's only cast after all..

I once had exactly this happen on another car (1.4 8v renault energy engine) cam wheel went in the same way.