'91 Series 3 Astra Diesel 1.7

if its been left at the side of the road, you might be lucky and some bugger nick it for you ;o)

you will need more then a cambelt & possibly a set of rockers as they get snapped. theres no quick cheap fix in this situation.

There is no chance that it is ok. You don't hear the valves bend and the followers snap on these, nor do you hear the valve guides break. Diesel clearances are even closer than petrol, so always break things.

It is scrap, unless you really love it and want to lavish money on it, plus remember that most of these have cracked heads too.

mrcheerful

I haven't had experience of that particular engine but I can relate to my experience with a Ford Escort 1.8D (non-turbo). Cam-belt snapped at traffic lights as I was just setting off, no more than 1500RPM max. Engine just totally died but I instinctively knew it had to be the cambelt. No noises, no nothing. I figured that I'd probably not got any damage since I didn't even attempt to restart it. Got the Green Flag man to take it straight to Halfords who had replaced said cam-belt 20,000 miles earlier after I'd phoned them to check on warranty situation. They said belts were warranted up to manufacturers recommended mileages and since they reckoned mine was due a cam-belt change at 36000 mile intervals, score! :P

Halfords agreed to cover the cost of the damage. The camshaft was snapped in three places and several valves were bent. All that at little over tick-over and no mechanical bangs or anything! Required a re-con cylinder head to fix it, fortunately I didn't have to pay for it! Don't be fooled into thinking that a low RPM cam-belt snap does minimal damage like I did.

Dave

They'd have to tow it :-) It's a real piece of crap, worthless enough that even a bunch of kids wouldn't want to vandalise it out of pity!

I got the AA out to tow it home- when he looked inside the rocker box cover, sure enough- broken rocker lying in the bottom.

Dave

Not mine, it's my mate's, though I feel guilty selling it to him last August ;-)

You're right- it's off to the scrapyard tomorrow. It's never missed a service, so I'm a bit disappointed the belt snapped.

Dave

Cheers Dave. It turns out at least one rocker is broken, and naturally he's not paying for a repair due to its age and condition so it's off to the scrapyard with it tomorrow.

Dave

8 times out of 10 on this engine the rockers snap, rather than causing any valve bending / camshaft snapping antics, but at 70mph it could still happen.

Tim..

That sort of result is the going rate on the Ford 1.8. Ive also seen the cam bearing caps punched off the head, and valve guides shattered (yours probably were too)

Tim..

Yep, there were several knackered valve guides as I recall. They ended up fitting a recon cylinder head in the end. Was glad to see the back of that pile of crap!

Dave

I'd have quite liked to take a look and see what damage has been done. Unfortunately he's scrapping it straight away so I won't get the chance. There's near side damage to the body off an earlier accident, a small fuel leak, and the water pump is leaking so it just isn't worth his time and money.

Dave