Mondeo 1.8TD cam belt snapped

Replace engine. Diesel compression ratio is double that of a petrol engine. There's little space in the combustion chambers so no way pistons and valves can avoid each other when the camshaft stops turning. Unlucky for belt to break at 40,000 unless badly fitted, incorrect tension, contaminated by oil. DaveK.

Did it make any nasty noises at all?

If it went bang - very expensive.

Are you any good at mending engines?

Si

Thanks for the reply. I haven't done much work on engines. I have changed an oil pump, water pump and a cam belt (on a Cavalier - not this Mondeo!) but that is about it.

In that case just bin the car. Repairs might be affordable if you could do the work yourself, but not if you have to get someone else to do the job or buy a load of tools and get it all wrong yourself.

MrCheerful

Bad luck. :(

Firstly, belt change interval on these engines + rollers is 36k miles.

What sort of speed was the engine running at when it broke, and did you try to re-start it??

Unfortunately when it does break 9.5 times out of 10 you will have serious damage. At the least you'll have several bent valves, worst case scanario is a snapped cam and / or cam bearing caps and a holed piston.

First thing to do is whip off the cam cover and look for broken bits. Then have the head removed and inspected for severeity of damage. Be ready to source a 2nd hand or refurbished cylinder head as this will be the quickest and least expensive way to get going again.

If there is piston damage, then look for a 2nd hand engine.

Tim..

I'd say the car's beyond economic repair unless you can do the job yourself using secondhand parts. Changing the engine complete is probably the easiest option.

Diesel engines have very strong bottom ends, so usually it's the top end of the engine that gets broken so maybe at worst you'll need a new CH and associated bits, these are easilly available.

-- James

Or buy a head off a scrappy.

I did mean using secondhand parts where possible !!

Twas a bit negative for you :-)

In message , "Tim (Remove NOSPAM. Registry corupted, reformated HD and lost alot of stuff :(" writes

IIRC from when I owned one, the original interval was 36k but was extended to 40k when the service interval went from 6k to 10k.

Unlucky? Ford recommend it be changed every 36K / 40K, so it was right on time. :(

Yes! When I asked about this, it seemed that the hardware had not changed, merely the oil was of a better quality - so they said . . .

Interesting. I have a 1.8 TD in my 2000 Ford Escort and only a couple of weeks ago asked this question and was told 5 years or 70K which ever the sooner.

They need to learn to read the technical service bulletins then! But only Ford dealers service dept get them and they won't tell you, the spares dept, salesmen or anyone else. In the USA there would have been a class action against Ford for this by now.

My mate found out the hard way he bought a 1.8TD Mondeo with 52K on it. Owners book said 70K so he though it would be OK. Belt snapped 2 weeks after buying it, took it in and was told it should be done at

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That explains the one I saw last week in a scrap yard. Cam lid off, caps off, cam in two parts! Wondered how they mangaed to snap a cam. Maybe Nissan's use of forked rockers on the SR20DET is not such a bad idea.

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It was the Ford service dept. that told me, they change them on the 5 year/70K service.

Five years or seventy thousand miles sounds like it may be the correct figures for the Zetec-E donk, i.e. the petrol one.

Ford's venerable 1.8 diesel has always had either a 36K or 40K cambelt replacement interval.

Heh, it's the donk's only mechanical weakness. Personally, I'd always get Ford to replace them on or before the mileage. If you have a Mondeo TD cambelt snap at 30K, the company will "contribute" towards the cost of the repairs. I've heard of troublesome Halfords garages arguging the toss about one of their snapped cambelts. :(