Sodding Lupo...
Turbo Mini Forums

Thought I'd start a new thread for this instead of keep adding to the end of the avon one.

The story so far:

My other half was driving her lupo and it started making an odd noise and almost immediately lurched. We pulled over and had a look. Basically the fan belt had shredded, wrapped itself around the crank pulley and got wedged in the teeth of the crank sprocket causing the cam belt to jump a few teeth.

Pulled the belts off and timed it up yesterday to see if I could get lucky and not have to take the head off. Cranked it and there's no compression. Then started raining so gave up for the day (oh yeah, and it was my birthday so wanted to have a drink!)

Pulled the head off today (there's a fuck load of things you have to remove first... proper ball ache)

Aaaanyway... autopsy has revealed:

- All 16 valves bent
- 2 slightly distorted cam lobes
- 2 slightly pitted cam lobes (not on the same shaft)
- All 4 piston crowns damaged in at least 3 places

Not checked the individual followers yet... but i’m not hopeful.

However the bores don’t appear to be scored.

Will get pics later when it stops raining again.

Can’t believe this much damage can be done by fan belt!!

Question is... do I put new pistons in the engine, or source a second hand lump and chuck that in to save the headache?

How bad is the damage to the pistons ???
Photo ???
I've had a belt fail (for a completely different reason) on a more expensive (or hard to source) engine but with a similar result, it ran several teeth out for a few seconds so bent all 16 valves and put 16 marks on the pistons.
For me it was quicker to source a secondhand head (rebuilt) than rebuild my own and I've run it on the pistons with the 16 marks ever since (about 7k miles so far).
Pistons are very resiliant, valves bend very easily when hot, it really depends how hard the pistons were hit.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

Frikkin VAG shite. If it wasn't for VAG the garage I work in would long be out of buisness. They account for about 50% of our work

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

Right... piccys

Sorry looking engine bay:



Cam Damage:






Valves and Chambers:






Piston Crowns (crap pics as they're still full of coolant)

Edited by Ric on 12th Jul, 2008.

Get each pair of pistons to the top, clean coolant off and photo again...

Valves are just as I have seen before.....

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

Get a recon head and nail it all back together...

Those pistons will be fine.

These guys do very cheap head recons and their postage service is GREAT

http://home.btconnect.com/redmansengines/index.html

AlexF

cheers alex, have just emailled them now.

Still a little unsure of the pistons, 2 and 3 look particularly chewed near the edges. Don't want it to pinch on one of the rings.

I agree...sling another head on the old girl. :)

just try another head, the worse that can happen is a week is lost...

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

Had a similar thing happen on a V6, part of the fan belt shreadded and got caught up in the cambelt. Bent 23 valves cracked a head and mashed 3 pistons - not a cheap repair as you can imagine.

ouch, this pales in comparrison to that!

What's the best way of supporting the engine over the course of the week. At the moment I have a nice wide soft bit of wood under the sump held up with a jack. Ideally I'd like to support it from above, but have no idea how to do this.

Cheers all.

This is what I use to support engines from above.
http://www.sealey.co.uk/PLPageBuilder.asp?...&productid=6708
Its great because the car is still moveable with this on. But they are useless on minis so if your not going to be using it often on other cars then its a bit of a waste.

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

that's perfect, shame it's so much. Will have a look on the bay, if not i'll take my chances.

Yeah, it is a bit pricey. I think you will be fine leaving the engine jacked up with the trolley jack and block of wood though

On 12th Nov, 2009 Paul S said:

I think Gary OS has taken over my role as the forum smart arse

You could come over all blue peter and make one

When my clio throw its belt off. It worked out cheaper and quicker just to source a 2nd hand engine.

You'll have it out and in a day, and your back on the road.

Loads of engines out there.

Si

I drill holes in everything..!

That was my initial plan, but the AUBs are quite hard to source. There's a few other lumps around, the the 1.6 from the gti will fit, but as it's Ange's car, it needs to remain standard. Shame. I'm well up for bolting an eaton on it.

the 1.8 turbo engine fits in a lupo too - monster quick, but sorting the head sounds alot cheaper lol

yeah, I'd be well up for that. Was tempted to buy one myself just to do that!

There a crazy one on youtube with an ihi turbo in. Makes well over 300bhp!

the 1.8 fits.... just like a c20let does in a mini... LOL with lots of work.

Ric it'll be fine, nail it back together :)

AlexF