Hi all I'm having a nightmare with my bug wagon. It's a 2001 mildly modded Jobbie.

The car was running fine with no issues. I went to start it and it just turns over with no intention of jumping to life. I have spark and I have fuel. There is no cel on my dash board.
When I try to start it, it turns over and occasionally pops / back fires . I have also had some white smoke coming from the air inlet when this is happening. I am thinking that the timing belt may have jumped a tooth perhaps? My timing marks look like they match up but I have been unable to take the crank pulley off ( that's tomorrow ) to double check everything.
I tried to do a compression test on both sides, ignition fuse out with WOT it's not reading at all on either side. Perhaps if the timing is out and the valves aren't opening and closing in time the air is just getting pushed past the valve, hence the white smoke???

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, I'm hoping this Sounds like a timing related issue.

 

Sounds exactly like mine did when it jumped a few teeth but I didn't compression test it at the time so can't comment on that. Get the crank pulley of and have a look, if a piston has melted it would only lose compression on that one cylinder.

 

This was loss of compression on both sides. Only did one piston per bank just to checkmit wasnt isolated to single piston. Did you just reset your timing belt and happy days or did you replace any parts?

 

Yeah on mine it had jumped four teeth on both left hand sprockets, I just reset and prayed to the god of subaru! Started perfectly and ran sweet, in my case it was just after a belt and tensioner change.

 

Well I have managed to sort the cam belt. When all cams were set, my crank marking were 90 degrees out. All reset and running. However, now I think the head gasket is shot! Drinking tons of water and getting pretty warm. I'll let it cool down and keep filling. Might just be air pockets after removing and installing the rad......

 

Well for anyone remotely interested it's sorted.

Turned out I was missing a bolt from my thermostat housing. The other morning when it first wouldn't start I saw a frozen puddle under the car but thought I was just the rad pipe being a little loose.

Looks like I had lost a bolt before parking it up and over night the water pump must have frozen up, thus allowing the belt to skip when starting. Now it's all done up it looks like all is ok. Holding temperature and no water loss.

Time will tell...

 

Moral of the story is always use antifreeze. Glad you have sorted it.

 

Glad its sorted. Lucky it didnt do. Oh and valve damage oh and get some anti freeze in it. Lol