TD downed by a sheet of plastic (pics of damage)

[veeman]

Sad day for me...

I was driving to work today on the highway and some building plastic came off of a truck in front of me.  I swerved to avoid it, but a strip (looked like the size of a garbage bag) went under my caddy and got sucked up by the belts.  I had been running without a top timing belt cover while I looked for a good cover that wasn't mangled.

Engine immediately stopped and I knew what happened.  I pushed in the clutch and drifted over to the side.  I opened the hood... no timing belt. and the waterpump belt was completely twisted.  Looks like the lower belt cover is all messed up too.   This stinks.

I'd say that since I was going about 60-65 mph when this happened, that I bent some valves at the very minimum.  Not sure about the pistons, but I can't imagine they're still usable.  I'll know more when I take the head off.

AAA picked me up and dropped me back at my house 20 miles away, so at least I didn't have to pay for the tow.  

So... next question.... Anyone got a good used  head or a replacement engine within a few hours of Southern Ohio?  Soon?   I've got a spare TD bottom end in unknown condition...

I guess the moral of the story is to make sure you have your engine covers on and to stay away from trucks dropping building supplies.

[Maarten]

Damn that sucks  :cry:

Sue the truck if you can remember his license/brand/company...

I always stay far away from open trucks, sometimes it's plastic, sometimes it's something heavier  :!:

[veeman]

Thing is that the truck wasn't even in my lane.  He was a few hundred feet up  from me in the middle lane.  I saw the plastic drifting all over the highway and was trying to get out of the way.  Very disheartening feeling to have the engine shut off like that at 60 mph.  S_cks.

One interesting thing will come of all this though... I've been running 100 percent biodiesel for a few months now (my own homebrew) and so when I take the head off, I'll get to see what kind of condition the valves / pistons are in.    I guess that's not much of a positive.  I'd rather have my running / driving car back.

I've got a TD bottom end of unknown condition and an NA head.  I guess I could slap that together somewhat quickly.   If I do have to "build" an engine, I fear I'll go overboard and end up dumping $2500 into the thing with new pistons, etc.

[jtanguay]

makes me want to put a wire screen under my engine... for rocks... and plastic  :x

oh and a screen for my a/c condensor... dont want bent fins!!!!!!!!

[burn_your_money]

That really sucks. You'd probably be best to jsut slap together your TD block and NA head and then go from there, unless all the pistons in the caddy are still good.

[veeman]

Well... I took the head off last night to inspect the damage.  First, here's a pic of the lower crank pulley and the plastic that caused the problem.



Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the plastic wasn't trash bag / plastic sheeting like I thought.  It seems to be white furniture wrap (not bubble wrap)...the kind of light stuff that's partially foam, partially plastic.  Somewhat explains how it was "floating" around the highway.  Regardless, it did a number on the engine. Fragments of ripped timing belt everywhere.

The first thing I noticed after taking off the valve cover is that the accident caused the cam to shatter the valve shim on cylinder #1 (damaging the follower as well) and spit out the shim on cylinder #4.  Not good.  The cam doesn't appear to be cracked and the lobes don't seem to be damaged.

The head itself looks ok.  I can see at least three bent valves, but there might be more since the cam won't go completely around.  Here's a shot of the head on cylinder number 4:



If you look close, you can see how the valve isn't sitting straight on the seat.  Ooph.

The other valves in the head look more normal.  The other three looked very similar... Like this:



Any comments from the experts?  You can see that there's a crack between the valves, but I've heard that apparently they all do that.  I've seen that on gasser engines as well.  This engine has approximately 40k miles on it since it's last head gasket / valve job.  

Does the carbon build up seem to be about normal?   The soot / carbon scrapes away with my fingernail and a rag.  One side note... I've been running B100 biodiesel for around 10,000 miles now.

Here's the one with the most carbon:



I'll post pics of the pistons up next...

[veeman]

On to the pistons... I was happy to see that there weren't any fragments in the cylinders and that there weren't any deep gauges / huge marks in the pistons themselves.

It appears that the valves did indeed touch one or two pistons, but the impact seemed to have only made valve marks in the soot / carbon.   I ran my finger along the marks and can't feel any signifigant depressions / raised edges.

Here's a shot of piston #2:  Nevermind the grime... I wanted to take shots "as is" when I lifted off the head.  You can see the outline of the valve on the right.



Here's a shot of piston #4 where the outline is the most clear...



Any advice on this sort of damage?   I did some looking in the archives and I see that others have been advised to use pistons that seem to be much worse than mine.    I worry about problems such as bent connecting rods, but I'm not sure I'm ready to tear the engine down completely right now.  This is my daily driver and I need it on the road.

Thoughts from the experts?   Assuming the bottom end is good, I'm thinking of removing the manifolds / cam from the head, then giving it to a local rebuilder so he can inspect it and rebuild it if possible.  If it's going to be expensive or impossible to do that, then I'll be in the market for a good used head or a new one.

[Master ACiD]

looks like you need a new intermediate shaft pulley. those pulleys are thin aluminum and break very easy. i see a chunk has been taken out of yours.

[veeman]

looks like you need a new intermediate shaft pulley. those pulleys are thin aluminum and break very easy. i see a chunk has been taken out of yours.

Yep...that one's mangled for sure.  Speaking of those pulleys, I've got to find the right puller for that.  I tried getting one off in the past and ended up breaking it.

[veeman]

Well, things took a turn for the worse.  I took apart the head and discovered that two of the cam followers got pushed against their bores, distorting the hole and cracking part of the head.

I talked to one shop that could sleeve the bores for me, but that would have been an extra $80 or so for each one...plus the head rebuild.

Looks like I'll be getting a new head afterall..  Topline and Aluminum Head Rebuilders don't have any right now... Parts Place has new ones for $540. Youch.

[SMOKEYDUB]

i would definetly leave the bottom end alone assuming it was a  good one before. A valve will mangle severerly before it will bend a monsterous rod. think about how much pressure goes on those rods when the cylinder fires. when the cylinder fires on a gasser there is somewere around 6000 pounds of pressure on everything inseide and i would assume it would take alot less then 6000 lbs of pressure to bend a valve.dont worry about the bottom end its fine i have seen worse and people reuse and it runs fine. good luck on finding a new cylinder head.any local scrap yards have any? and is it a 1.6 or a 1.9?


Good luck hope everything starts turning around and working out for ya

Jeff

[veeman]

Here's a bit of an update.   I've been slowly working on getting the caddy back on the road.

First, a pic of the crank pulley wrapped in death plastic after I took off the pulley. You can see it got sucked into the pulley and promptly wrapped all the way around it, breaking the timing belt.



What I don't understand is that the lower metal cover looks different than the new lower plastic cover I'm putting on.  It seems the metal one just protects the bottom of the crank pulley area where the black plastic one is much larger and covers up to the intermediate pulley.  

Seems to be a picture of the metal one in the Bentley, but I can't figure out why it wouldn't have had the full lower cover.  I bought the TD engine as a unit, so the PO put on the metal cover... is it right for a TD?

Anyway, I was able to line up a freshly rebuilt head from someone locally (hour away).  Not cheap, but it sure looks nice.






I then had my injectors pop tested and of course, they're worn and needed to be rebuilt / replaced.  Great.  The tech said the spray pattern was ok, but that they were "drizzling" when they were supposed to be closed.  The quote was for around $220 for a rebuilt and even more for new ones.

Since I needed new nozzles anyhow, I picked up some GTD nozzles from TDTuning and had the shop assemble them for me.  Not sure if they'll make a difference or not in power, but I'm looking forward to them clearing up a bit of the smoke I had before coming from leaking injectors.

I also tried something new for the valve cover and top timing belt cover.  On another forum, the guys use Krylon wrinkle paint on valve covers and it turns out looking very sharp.  I got two cans of it and followed the directions.  I'm really liking the finish...looks almost like a textured powdercoat and only cost about $9 to do.  I'll get some pics.

As of right now the new head is on and the timing belt is all back on and roughly timed up.  I've got to do the final timing and then I'll try to crank it up.  

One note for people doing a head gasket or replacing a head.  If you're leaving the pump on the engine, remember to put on the glow plug bus bar BEFORE you put on the head.  

I had a fit trying to get those tiny 8mm nuts on the glowplugs behind the pump.  Wow.   Same goes for the timing belt tensioner on an A1.   Although you can pull the stud and then put the tensioner on that way, I think it'll be MUCH easier to have that on the head when you put it together.

Finally... I borrowed an idea from another project and made some alignment tools for helping to guide the head onto the block.  Basically, I took two old head bolts, cut the heads off and then cut slots into the top of them.  



You just thread them into two holes on opposite sides of the block and then you can slip the head on...perfectly aligned.  After you're done, you can unscrew them with a screwdriver and fish them out with a magnet...

[fspGTD]

Sorry to hear of your misfortune...  When those solid lifter adjuster pucks get spat out of their buckets, it really wreacks havoc with the head!

That rebuilt head sure looks nice though!    I'll bet your block and pistons are going to be just fine too.

Regarding the lower cover, I am not familiar with the metal one you describe and picture - I have only seen and used the plastic one on VW Diesels.  I wonder if the metal one was not supposed to be on there, IE: if it was off a gasser or some early 1.5 diesel design perhaps.

Best of luck getting 'er back together!

[935racer]

Just took a quick scan through the thread, big time bummer, unfortunately no one mentioned checking the deck height of EVERY piston. I have had a couple broken timing belts come in on customer cars where a rod or even a wrist pin has been bent, without there having been signifigant piston damage. Although your luck is better with the IDI engines, the tdi rods tend to bend like pretzels :cry:

[veeman]

Thanks for the advice Dave and Jake...  I did check the piston protrusion before putting the head back on and it seemed correct.  I think the rods are fine.

In other news, I got everything back together and the caddy is now back on the road.  I made sure to put the belt covers back on this time.  I don't want the broken timing belt experience to happen again any time soon.

Next, I expected the GTD injectors to raise the idle, but they didn't.  After priming the pump, the engine started right up and settled to a good idle just as before.   FWIW, I do notice a much smoother, more "regular" idle and a bit more pep when the boost kicks in though.  

The only thing I'm noticing is that in between some gears (1st and 2nd mainly) , it seems the rev's don't drop as soon as I think they should.  I'm off the pedal, but it seems there's residual fuel in there that makes the engine stay slightly rev'd before I shift.  Makes it feel like I'm slipping the clutch into second.    Perhaps there's some pump tuning I need to do to compensate for the new injectors...

I'm glad to have the car back on the road.  It's funny... I used to have a 99.5 turbo Audi and I recently sold it.  It was a great, comfortable car, but oddly enough, I wasn't driving it.  I'd much rather drive the caddy...even with no a/c.  People don't understand...