Following my other thread saying that the head gasket had gone in my MY93 WRX something odd has happened. The head gasket hasn't gone!
The garage I took it to called me earlier sounding rather bemused. They started to strip out the car to remove the heads (after doing compression tests on cylinders). On removing the cam belt cover they found that BOTH cams on the drivers side have jumped 6 teeth each. There is no visible damage to the belt but they did find two small pieces of plastic about 15mm*15mm "floating about" in there. The guy said that they have come from the rear part of the cam belt cover. Now I personally can't see these two pieces of plastic making the belt jump, OK maybe one cam but two exactly the same? I have never heard of anything like this before.
Has anyone got any ideas? John Banks or Bob Rawle? Anyone I can talk to about it?
Thanks in advance
Mark


PS Anyway the good news was that after stripping the head, the gasket hasn't gone atall

 

Not got a clue m8 sorry, I've not delved into the heads. Andy F, David Wallis, StevieTurbo, Pavlo, UKLegacyT or R19KET would proably know since they love taking these things to bits

 

Hi Mark

I have seen this before. If the plastic and or bolts goes between the belt and the cam wheels it stretches the belt over the teeth and it goes out of timing. A few runs through and it gets serious. Too many teeth out and the valves are still hanging down when the piston reaches TDC.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. Spoke to the guy who's building my mates rally car and he reckons that the cam belt tensioner could have gone slightly weak, causing the belt to jump.
Edited to say that luckily the piston doesn't seem to have hit the valves.

[Edited by mark@wrx - 2/26/2003 8:04:58 PM]

 

Make sure you replace the head gaskets now the head has been removed.

Steve

 

Steve Sherwen,

If they haven't split the heads from the block yet, and they have found cam timing to be the root of the problem, then why would it be necessary to change the head gaskets now!?

Moray

 

The head has been removed last night Moray so a new gasket is going on.