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Lesson for all... especially me....

ORIGINAL: charles.y

Why don't they make longer life and more robust belts ! [:mad:]

Charles
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Yes, i was thinking the same - are ther any makes that are more prone to snapping than others?
 
Didn't I read somewhere that Ford are going back to using chains?

I would have thought that, on the basis that rubber-on-metal should only cause wear to the rubber, a regularly-changed belt is better than a metal-on-metal chain?

If, as I suspect, we are nearly all doing less than average miles in the cars, then we've got to budget on a belt every three years. At c. £200 for the job as part of a service, that's only about £70 per year. That's not much more than doing the belt every 4 years, I'd rather be safe than sorry.......


 
ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty

Didn't I read somewhere that Ford are going back to using chains?

I would have thought that, on the basis that rubber-on-metal should only cause wear to the rubber, a regularly-changed belt is better than a metal-on-metal chain?

If, as I suspect, we are nearly all doing less than average miles in the cars, then we've got to budget on a belt every three years. At c. £200 for the job as part of a service, that's only about £70 per year. That's not much more than doing the belt every 4 years, I'd rather be safe than sorry.......
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So if 3 years is the approx life of a cam belt being cautious - should all the rollers, balance belt etc be changed at the same interval or would they be changed based on their appearance at the time of cam-belt change?
 
For the S2, some said on the safe side its better to change the chain, tensioners and rollers too at the same time. I guess the total bill for changing the timing belt, chain, tensioners, rollers etc could easily be £600-£800 [&o]

Charles
 
A good and experienced indy who knows his stuff should be able to tell you when the rollers will need doing. We've put 80,000 and 50,000 miles on our cars and had 5 belt changes in this time and it tends to work out that the rollers have been changed every other belt change.

I'm sure I read from Bert Gear (could be worng tho [:-]) that the belts nowadays are much better than the original ones and fail less often but because of so many failures through the 90's we all tend to err on the side of caution
 
ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty

Didn't I read somewhere that Ford are going back to using chains?...
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I assume they do on the V6's as the Jasper has chains.

Belts deteriorate if you do 30,000 miles or no miles at all. Chains don't, so Jasper only gets a big service every 100,000 miles.

 
I would have thought it would be quite an easy task for those in the know to develop a conversion to chain kit for cars that have rubber belts. The belt on my Zetec engine is supposed to be good for 100k miles. I think i'll probably bottle out at 70 - 80 k miles. It doesn't seem right for a gloryfied rubber band.
 
Hey all,


Back from an excellent holiday in the Italian Alps , had some news from the Garage too. Looks like I've managed to bend only 4 valves and somehow I've damage the tips of the Injectors. So new valves, injector tips, belts, tensioners and rollers and we should be good to go :).

Hope your all well and enjoying the warm spring weather.

Dave K.
 
ORIGINAL: pauljmcnulty

Didn't I read somewhere that Ford are going back to using chains?
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Ford have used chains on there bigger Diesels (2 litre) for years. BMW uses chains on all of it's engines, and let's face it has a good rep for making excellent engines.

On the E30 M3, the Duplex chain set up is good for 200k miles, and that's in a high revving four pot that's designed to bound of it's 7500 rpm rev limiter! The cost of replacement is usually around £1k inc, the rollers and pulleys, so not really much more than a belt and roller change!

You also get a bit of warning with chains - they start going a bit rattly.
 
The 2 reasons I have heard for using belts rather then chains is noise and less power loss due to lighter components. To be honest I am a bit sceptical of how much the 2nd claim could make but the first one seems hard to deny. Personally having owned two saabs with chain driving 16v heads I would much prefer chain driven cams, much less to worry about i.e. you worry about turbo blowing oil, vacuum pipes that have corroded or fall off etc. etc. sounds familiar?.
 
sounds like you managed to catch it just in time, nice to dodge what could have been a very big bullet i.e. a kick in the nuts is infintely preferable to a bullet in the head.
 
I suppose one danger with chains is that they lull you into a false sense of security in that you assume they are bullet proof and maintenance free but they are not. Chains are obviously a much better engineering solution but I don't think there is anything wrong with belts either so long as you adhere to the maintenance schedules- BMW's don't have the monopoly on high milage engines, there are plenty of 944's that have racked up enough miles to have done a couple of return trips to the moon. The timing belt interval on my Focus is 100k miles, although i'll probably chicken out at around 80k miles.
 
Never heard of the chain on a Saab 16v engine snapping, wrecking the head. Seems to have happened far to many times on S/S2. I would also be surprised if many BMW M engines with chain driven cams have had a chain snap. Like the other guy said you can hear it rattling away long before a disaster is likely to happen. I did one in my old 900 at 120K miles, took 2 of us about an hour and cost me ISTR about 100 quid including the pay for the other guy. The thought of the cam belt going on my S2 is always in the back of my mind.
 
Am having the belts replaced at present as I checked through the past bills and realised it had just reached 4 years since she last had them done...Oh and the water pump needs replacing too [&:]

Still better safe than sorry !
 
The Focus engines are 100k or 10 years, which as Scott says, sounds a long time to me!

Saying that, I've got two diesels, both of which were changed at around 100k, and which didn't go plop beforehand!
 
Evening all,

Chain cam belts hey :) well I've just spoken to the mechanic who is fixing the car... Didn't inspire me with the greatest of confidence especially when he told me that I must have a different engine in the car as the valves he has ordered don't fit. Started muttering 968..... Also still waiting on injector tips, anyone else done the injectors before ? by tips I assume thats just the caps on the end? I had a quick look and www.rennbay.com do a complete injector reseal kit.

Well I'm not sure what to do at this stage as I have not had the car for 2 weeks now and work are beginning to get restless with me working from home for so long. Wish I had bitten the bullet and got the car into one of the specialists before any work started...

Dave K.


 
In my experience of belt failures it isn't that the belt necessarily snaps but the rubber teeth can shear off. The carcass of the belt itself is probably kevlar cord strengthened but the teeth are not.
 
Hey all,

Just waiting for the beast to be put back together now, going to be having new valve stem seals, radiator, headset, 3 new valves, timing and balance belts plus all tensioners and coolant and oil change. Can't wait to get the car back and take it for a drive, I wonder if it will feel any different with the valve stem seals being changed :)

Cheers

Dave K.
 
Congrats Dave, you're nearly there now. I am betting that it will feel a lot better with the new valve stem seals, it seems to be accepted that the 16v cars (S, S2 and 968) all lose a bit of power due to wear here.

When I organise the Dyno Day in the summer you must bring it again as we have never had a really healthy figure from an S
 
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