1998 Ford Escort 1.4 CVH Engine - dead - suggestions? (2025 Update)

Fair enough - what I had in mind was potential damage to the pistons and the possibility of the head gasket failing if not done more or less exactly to the letter against there being loads of old Escorts knocking about with scrap bodywork but OK-ish engines. Similar thing happened to a mate of mine's Orion, he got a secondhand engine and never looked back - the engine was still running sweetly (for a CVH) when most of the rest of the car had rotted away.

sounds like its bent a valve when the belt broke, to be honest these heads are easy to strip and re-fit new valves, if the car is worth it then id go for a head rebuild.

Well seeing as I never graduated from charm school, I guess you have never picked up a spanner.

Sensible advice reg.

You'll be lucky to buy a decent engine for anything for less than about £300. Whereas the parts for a head job will come to around £100 including skimming (maybe more if valves need replacing, but not much). Plus you don't know what you're getting with a second-hand engine. I recently put one in an Omega and ended up doing the head job as well.

The previous owner had the car garage maintained regularly and prior to the belt going ping it was mechanically A1. Given that we've just put new tyres all round, new exhaust, new MoT and a year's tax on the thing then a head job has to be worth a try - looks like an oily weekend coming up - once the head is off and we can see what the valves/pistons look like then we'll decide what to do then.

According to the service history the broken cam belt had done just under

Graeme

Exactly Chris except you replied to my post instead of the plonker who suggested it could be easier and cheaper to fit a scrapyard engine.

Do the head job. Even if its 150quid it'll be worth it. CVH's (or PTE's better but not un flawed) run the valve gear close to destruction as it is, so grinding all the valves in, cleaning it all up, a new cam and lifter set (depending on miles and previous oil change frequency, but they'll be shot after about 80k anyway) will result not only in much better mpg, but another

Tim..

Not having any experience of these engines, what does this mean?

There are two flaws with the valve gear on the CVH. Firstly due to the angle at which the valves are in the head and the design of the lifters and operating angle of the rockers, the valve springs are very short and strong. The pressure from the valve springs on the camshaft is about double what it is in something else.

Secondly on cylinders 3&4 the rollers on the rockers dont actually contact the lobe on the cam centrally and run to one side.

Thirdly the hardnessing on the actual lobes is very thin and soon wears away. When this happens the lobes wear with frightening speed you soon end up with alot less lift than there should be.

The lift of a CVH cam is about 80k, with regular oil changes, often less. You wont hear the wear unless its very bad as the hyd lifters take up the slack.

Tim..

The message from "Tim.." contains these words:

I remember fitting a new cam to a Pinto engine in a Transit. The old one had done about 180,000 miles and wasn't in the peak of freshness, the lobes were almost round - at least 2mm down on the peaks. First user who got in the bus the next day nearly crashed with suprise at how much smoother and more powerful it was.

Thanks for that. Perhaps the pushrod in the Ka was a good idea, then?

Check the injector seals they also go bad and crack causing the car not to start replace the seals and see the spark is consistent if not check the contact and see if the crankshaft sensor is not damaged and the crankshaft sensor plug is not damaged I sorted these two problems out the car started on the turn no issues after that sold it cause it was rusted out struggled one year just to find out it was these two buggers giving a problem

Thank goodness you came along, 19 years the poor sod's been waiting for somebody to tell him how to get his car going.