value?

The last tine I had to investigate a cam belt (in a 1971 Cortina), I found it was toothed, so couldn't slip. It had broken, "fixed" by a breakdown service - one tooth out !

A friend drove a pinto engined sierra for several years, eventually he asked to have the cam belt changed, it had been one tooth out since before he bought it, after I had set it all up correctly, he complained that the engine was less flexible and he had to change gear more often. The cam had been one tooth retarded.

Amateur radio does seem to attract a large number of cooks. Dunno why.

All the moderated forums I use - mostly car related - work very well. If you look at similar on Facebook, they are awash with just pics of the cars. Which most already know what they look like. Those who are the most knowledgeable about a make and likely to give decent help with a problem seem to prefer forums. Perhaps their experience has come with age, of course.

True. But then plenty have a service life of perhaps 100,000 miles. ;-)

Something like a Defender.

Expensive Slow Heavy fuel consumption Noisy Uncomfortable Diabolical to drive on the road compared to near any car.

Need I go on?

err, they are all toothed belts, it's the only way to maintain correct registration between crankshaft and camshaft(s).

They do indeed 'slip', by jumping around the sprocket and this is how the valves and pistons have a deadly embrace (on some cars).

He's been offered £75 to come and colect the car for scrap, which is a good deal. Possibly because the scrappy is betting on an oil change, suck out the water from the cylinders and an instant £600 profit.

I guess scrap prices must have fallen. I got £200 (collected) for the Punto a few years ago. I rang round, and the offers varied quite a bit: £50-200 IIRC.

I think they're on the up.

Then nothing for about a year.

Just started hearing (one) again.

Pretty rare a recently running car is used only for scrap. Normally dismantled for any useful parts. Which won't be just the engine.

not round here, there are now very few 'breakers' Land prices are too high for them to keep going. Scrap places are taking in complete runners, often under ten years old, they have the fluids removed, batteries and alloy wheels removed, catalytic converters cut off, the engine/box is torn out with a grab, and the remainder goes in the crusher, then, elsewhere the remains are torn apart and separated on a conveyor belt machine and useful stuff goes to be remelted.

Yep, a Defender is a proper off-roader, but something like a Rav 4 does make some sense as a family car if you live out of town.

Chris

You shouldn't be hearing them. They aren't allowed to use loud hailers or other noise pollution to tout for scrap any more.

Will you nip out and tell them?

But that?s yet another different scenario to the my question (that everyone seems to have forgotten), namely can a starter motor produce enough torque to damage a hydraulically locked engine?

Of course a running engine may have already sustained irreparable damage from ingesting water but I was curious as to whether attempting to turn an already locked engine over with the starter could actually bend conrods etc.

Tim

Yes the starter can bend the con rod or damage the head gasket. Both result in low compression on the locked cylinder and poor running.

One of them that used to come round here used a loud hailer shouting "bring out yer dead". Decent area, not a council estate. I've not seen him for years. They are handy though. My cheap lawn mower which was doing my back in but still worked was dumped at the end of the drive, it was gone the next day. If I had not got rid of it I'd be tempted to keep using it - getting no younger. I will now HAVE to get a new one. Been thinking of this: Two small lawns.

I favour a sort of cyborg-mower: it ambles around the grass by itself after the manner of a sheep, but programmed to avoid the flower beds; then at night it parks itself over a drain and quietly defecates into the sewer system where its faeces (along with waste from human sources) are converted to methane to be stored for useful purposes.

It ought to be possible to genetically engineer cattle in much the same way - it would save the farmers a lot of work. One can toilet-train dogs, so why not cattle?

My impression too. Last couple I have scrapped went straight to scrap metal merchant (of which there are several within 20 miles paying useful money). I occasionally get bits from a local breaker but these days more usually via ebay (typically when wife writes off wing mirrors and tail light clusters).

I guess there is a market for engines and gearbox from insurance write-offs, but these days the reliability of stuff is so much better. When I was running pretty marginal motors as a lad I'd be in the scrappie a few times a year for dynamos, wiper motors, drive shafts, speedos, stalks, doors, etc.

Different brains.