Blam !, broke my timing belt !

[JimBowNut]

(1995 4 banger)

So.......Driving to church Sunday morning and just out of the clear blue the car goes dead as I pull up to the parking lot ..........Coasted right in and parked and had my religion tested for a few moments ........When I cooled off some I decided I had better go on in and pray about this .......Long story short, it was just the timing belt......But wait a minute, why did it break?........could not determine why it broke at first ,only had 60k on it.........put it all back together (did that whole side w water pump, seals, etc) (and did you know that a 4th gen cam seal will fit in a 3rd gen even though the part # is different ? )........Anyway put it all back together and cranked her up and you never heard so much squalling coming from under the hood in your entire life !!! .......so took it apart again and man that idler pulley was just barely loose, don't know how it could have made so much noise ...........So, I think the idler pulley broke my timing belt.

Has anybody else run across this situation ?

[zb420]

No, but your story just makes me glad I had that replace last week. It had 110K mi. on it.. I kind of had forgot about it.

You're lucky though... your engine still is OK and you didn't have to pay a mechanic to work on it...

[fenixus]

so the idler seized and torn the belt? some of those idlers/tensioners are dangerous ...

I had the tensioner actually start spilling grease from bearing after only 20k miles (GMB brand) from replacement, replaced it with a Koyo aftermarket and used a new OEM spring for belt retensioning. so far so good.

[toovira]

Any bearings can go bad. That's why you always check side to side and top to bottom play and then spin it and feel it. It shouldn't make any noise and feel any roughness.

[Jason.MZW20]

Originally Posted by zb420

You're lucky though... your engine still is OK and you didn't have to pay a mechanic to work on it...

Wouldn't matter anyway, the engine is non-interference.

I broke my timing belt in my MR2 (with the old 5SFE) at 5000rpm on the freeway. That was fun. Engine was good for another 70k miles after that until I pulled it for the 1MZ.

[zb420]

Originally Posted by Jason.MZW20

Wouldn't matter anyway, the engine is non-interference.

.

Jason, can you explain what that means?

[fenixus]

non-interference design of those 2.2L and 3.0L engines means that if the timing belt snaps while driving no valves get bent (no interference when things start spinning out of sync).

later generation of 2.4L and 3.3L are both interference engines with variable timing (VVTi), but those cars have timing chains, not belts.

Originally Posted by zb420

Jason, can you explain what that means?