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It started, innocently enough, with a phone call.
Friend: Hey, Hinoki! Up to helping me with the Spectra?
Me: Sure! What happened?
Friend: Well, the radiator had been cracked for a while, but it wasn’t too bad, so my wife kept driving it. but today, it overheated a little and stopped running. It was cold out, so we tried starting it. Finally got it running, and limped it a bit closer home. Tried starting it again, but couldn’t. Had it towed home, and the tow driver thought it might’ve slipped time as that’s kinda common on Kia.
Me: (thinking to self:) Oh, !@$%.
Friend: But it’s okay. It’s not an interference engine.
Me: (Googles a 2005 Kia Spectra, 2.0l DOHC. It’s an interference engine, alright).
We proceed to spend the next two days in the rain and cold, pulling apart the motor mount, upper and lower timing cover, etc. Spark plugs 1 & 2 looked okay. The tips hadn’t been banged to hell and they weren’t particularly fouled. But Cylinder 3… pulled that plug, and oil was dripping off the cathode.
The timing belt looked worn, but was intact. The teeth didn’t look stripped out, so it SEEMED that it hadn’t actually skipped a tooth or two.
But when we held the new timing belt up to the old? The old one had about an inch and a half of slop. It’d stretched, and stretched BADLY. I come to find that even though Kia recommends a 60k service interval, I’m staring at the original belt with 155,000 on it. With it being that loose, the picture’s become pretty clear. I’m 85% certain at this point that the car is toast… but he’s a friend, needed my help badly as replacing the car or engine wasn’t an option, and you never know. We might get lucky.
We didn’t get lucky.
Throughout the process, we were downright anal about double,triple, and quadruple checking the timing. All the marks were lined up good and proper. The notch on the crankshaft wheel aligned perfectly with the TDC mark on the block. On this engine, the camshaft sprocket has a pinhole in it through which you can see a red mark if the engine is at TDC. It was centered perfectly.
So, come 4pm in a brisk Tennessee winter afternoon (it was 32,or there-abouts), everything was bolted back up. New radiator. New plugs and plug wires. new timing belt. Timing was verified again, one last time to make sure all was as it should be.
My friend hits the starter… and it cranks rather quickly. Doesn’t sound like there’s any compression whatsoever. I don’t have a bore scope to have a peek, and our tools were only reasonably adequate to the task at hand.
To me, it seems that the valves may have been mulched during, if not the initial belt stretchy-failure, then the repeated attempts to get the engine running again. Given the presence of oil in cylinder 3, I’d also say that there’s some cylinder/piston/ring damage.. as it shouldn’t be in there, at least in that quantity.
Regardless, I don’t see the car as being worth the 1200 for a new (or newer) motor. I’m fairly sure this vehicle has gone on it’s Last Drive and is cruising a highway where pot-holes and traffic jams are mere legends.
Moral of the story?
Maintain your stuff. 😛
-Hinoki
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Yep, been there, but lucked out. On my Integra, timing belt broke at 120,000, when revving pretty good on the highway, so you’d think there would be a great chance of wrecking the valves, but they somehow escaped harm.
What you could have done is check the valve adjustments, a bent valve is going to have a large valve clearance, or be stuck.
Would have loved to, but it was getting dark and even colder.
We also didn’t have the parts on hand to fix it if it had been busted, nor did we have the tools to pull the head if it needed replacing.
If he keeps it, we might try digging into it a bit deeper come next weekend if’n it’s warm enough.
Either way, I’m pretty sure she’s a goner.
-Hinoki
That’s a great story, thanks for posting it here. Yeah, with oil on that plug you knew it was more than a timing belt — too bad you couldn’t save yourself the expense and effort of all that work. I wonder how a pro would have approached it…. Probably would have gone direct to salvage without any labour cost. Even a compression test requires the engine to be in time.
[quote=”Hinoki” post=82465]
Friend: Well, the radiator had been cracked for a while, but it wasn’t too bad, so my wife kept driving it. but today, it overheated a little and stopped running. It was cold out, so we tried starting it. Finally got it running, and limped it a bit closer home. Tried starting it again, but couldn’t. [/quote]The tow truck driver pointed your friend in the wrong direction. I think his wife is fudging the “a little” bit some, if an engine overheats and stops running, that is a very very very bad thing. I will bet money the headgasket is blown and the head is either cracked or warped so bad there is no compression.
The timing belt looked worn, but was intact. The teeth didn’t look stripped out, so it SEEMED that it hadn’t actually skipped a tooth or two.
That timing belt was not the source of the problem at all, likely needed changing, but I will bet the problem is very related to the overheat.
Kia engines are very susceptible to overheat damage.
Oh, I don’t know about that.
Given it was that badly stretched, I can see it being quite out of time as a result.
At least, that’s the general consensus so far.
Check my logic, and please feel free to tell me if and where I’m wrong! I’m here to learn, after all.
1) Timing belt stretched.
2) Engine thus out of time.
3) Valves come down.
4) Piston comes up.
5) Valve and Piston have little metal-shard babies.
6) Engine packs it in and calls it a day.
7) I freeze various anatomical parts off attempting to fix it anyway.Anyhoo, it was a learning experience and a good excuse to hang with a friend I don’t get to see very often. Plus, learned a fair bit about the how-tos of a timing belt replacement.
-Hinoki
Also… it didn’t actually overheat. They saw the needle heading up past the normal position.. it ..
well, now that I think about it, it could be him not wanting to fess up to how badly it overheated. There’s really no way for me to tell, is there!
Regardless, thanks for the input. 🙂
-Hinoki
[quote=”Hinoki” post=82477]Also… it didn’t actually overheat. They saw the needle heading up past the normal position.. it ..
well, now that I think about it, it could be him not wanting to fess up to how badly it overheated. There’s really no way for me to tell, is there!
Regardless, thanks for the input. 🙂
-Hinoki[/quote]
It happens. Years ago I bought my wife a nice little Cavalier, she calls the shop from the road and tells me it overheated “a little” and it shut it down and does not want to start. Had it towed in and sure enough the head was cracked and the gasket blown.
Not doubting the belt was stretched, it is just usually the last(warning light related)thing to happen right before a engine will not start is almost always related to the no start situation. And you have to think that the belt has been stretched for quite awhile and yet you noticed the timing was still pretty close to being right. Normally to run the valves into the pistons the timing has to get pretty far out of sync. And when people try to “limp em” home is when they often push it just a bit to much trying to make it that last bit.
One way to get an idea is an engine that has been severely overheated enough to do damage often has a funny “smell” to it.
I’m not a professional but I think the best thing to have done here, not minding the condition of the timing belt, would be to have checked timing and then have gone directly to a compression test. The result of that test would be interesting.
An overheat to the point of engine stall is NEVER a good thing. It usually means you’re going to need an engine. Metal is not indestructible. Heat can stress it. When it does, it’s never the same. That said, I often advocate replacement over rebuilding. Especially in a situation like yours. You found a LOT of problems with that engine by the sound of it. Still, why not run a compression test just to see what you have? You don’t really have anything to loose at this point.
Keep us posted.
I think some of the others may be right. I think it was so hot that it shut down. If the temp gauge sensor is above the coolant level in the cylinder head the gauge won’t read correctly. They often are hotter than the gauge shows.
The oil on the spark plug could be caused from oil in the spark plug tube from a bad seal and got on the plug tip when you removed it.
I would remove the valve cover and check the valve clearances and if OK do a compression test. That will give you an idea of the engine condition.
Keep us updated…
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