My sis has a excel, and the timing belt went. are these engines the safe type, or the type that if the belt snaps, it stuffs the valves and stuff. Her boyfriend put a new timing belt in, but he said the valves are all stuffed and the car wont start. before i throw car in bin, i just wanted to see if he has set the timing wrong or something and thats why its not starting. He seems to be pretty smart with cars, but just got me thinking when my sis said when it went, the car just stoped without a bang or anything. i would have thought it would of made a massive sound.
A mate of mine's daughter had an early model excel and the belt went on that also. He thought the engine would be ok as it just stopped and didn't make any weird noises so he put another belt on only to find it wouldn't start. When he removed the head the valves were a mess and he found out later that they are very soft anyway. Don't know if that helps but rip the head off before dumping it.
I got the mrs Hyundai Accent belt changed today at 90000km service, the mechanic said Hyundai specify the belt to be changed early at 90000 probably to stop the chance of snapping early & doing a bit of damage, glad I did now reading this as could be in the same boat.
they usually damage valves/pistons. have had 1 that didnt do any damage though. pretty sure it was a fluke though.
So it sounds like the car is stuffed. I dont no whether its worth fixing it since the car only worth couple grand. Is it hard taking off the head and replacing valves? Roughly how much would a mechanic charge to do it. cheers.
hopefully it has not smashed the head beyond repair,,, may be up for a new head as well... taking head off and replacing valves is not a hard job, depends on the state of the mess it has done and damage.... goodluck
for a shop to do the work work you would be easily looking at a grand, if the head itself is damaged expect to see steep increase of that price and most shops wont quote you as you can never determine the state until you actually pull the head off. as for doing it yourself, yes its not that difficult, but there are many things that need to be done in very specific ways which if not done correctly can cause another catastruaphic situation :/ if your interested i might be willing to give you a few hundred for it
Then you also got the chance a valve has gone through a piston so your up for a rebuild. Rip the head off and have a look.
What model excel? If it's an X3, then yep the head is stuffed, but you might either be able to pick up a cheap motor, or flog of your rolling shell here: www.excelrally.com.au It really is a pity that they're an interference motor because in every other respect the X3 is bulletproof...
I don't understand how the timing belt breaking could cause so much damage to the rest of the engine?
Because on some engines when the belt breaks, the engine keeps turning, pistons keep going up and down without the belt to make sure the timing is right so the pistons hit the valves, and stuffed head.
It related to whether the engine is a interference or a non interference engine. Read here for more info: Interference engines and what you need to know. | Car Blog and Interference Engines and Timing Belts
friend has an excel that we bought from salvage auction(was her car she wrote it off ) cost $300 which was the rate for most of the excel's we saw. might be worth looking at getting one and using the engine then sell off parts for a profit.
