Is my engine toasted

[smcinrox]

I am working on a 94 toyota corolla with the 7AFE engine. I lost the Timing belt. The car actually belongs to my daughter. I pulled the valve cover off and the top cam shaft? that actuates the valves is very hard to turn (belt is not attached to it). There is a red film on all the parts. Looks like it got very hot. Should that shaft be hard to Turn when grasping the pulley that the timing belt goes around. It is pretty hard to turn and I'm concerned that the shaft may have partially seized and caused to belt to break. I found the oil level was down at the very bottom of the cross hatches on the dip stick. Only about 1/2 cm of oil showing on stick.

Any help will be appreciated!

[toyomoho]

It is possible the belt just broke, this happens. How old was the belt? Oil will often start cooking on drive train surfaces such as bearing caps, cylinder head surfaces and leave a film. The cam lobes should not show signs of overheating such as being blue in color.

Find something like a strap wrench or make a tool that can apply leverage to the cam pulley and then rotate it CW. During rotation, the torsion force required will alternate between being difficult (feel like something is binding) to easy as the cam engages the valves. If the drive train acts like described above, the belt may have just broken.

[94_Rolla_Guy]

it is very difficult to rotate the cams manually, the red/brown film isn't a problem.

the 7afe should be fine as they are non-interference engines replace the timming belt and the water pump if needed (while your in there), also check the tensioner pulley as if that seizes the belt wont last and may be why the belt broke in the first place.

[smcinrox]

Thanks guys,
I appreciate your input. I will continue taking the timing belt covers off and inspect the tensioner pulley and water pump. I just didn't want to wast too much time if my engine was toasted.
thanks again,
I'll update when I have an update.
Sam

[Infinitrium]

Hopefully your daughter isn't too cheesed about this happening

[schn0354]

Why did you remove the timing belt? More importantly, why the camshaft? Did you actually remove the bearing caps? I just sucessfully replaced piston rings, valve seals, and timing belt on a 7A-FE. Check out my post on this forum for pictures. Make sure you use a good service manual when putting it back together. You can use a crescent wrench on the nut part of the exhaust camshaft to turn it. It turns with resistance, but be careful as it does not always turn depending on its position. Let me know if you need help. The procedure to put everthing back together is complicated, but definitely possible if you follow good instructions.

[blb]

smcinrox,
Just curious, How many miles were on the vehicle when it broke?