I've replaced the cambelt, tensioners, pump, etc on my j4rs lump, and then got this rather mysterious set of noises. Needless to say, the engine now runs like a bag of spanners, but still appears to be firing on all 4.

Firstly it started out sounding like a 'tapper' which made me think I'd messed up the cambelt replacement, but then within a minute it turned into a 'knocker', and shortly afterwards settled down into an extremely unpleasant tinny grinding noise, rather like a cheap kid's skateboard.

I'm totally mystified, anyone heard a similar noise in the past?

http://youtu.be/G-8DAFg3Oz4
http://youtu.be/gawVJYS2Mus

History behind this is - the engine was running fine with good compression throughout but a spectacularly loose cambelt (about 8mm play between camshaft sprockets, and could turn the belt around 120 degrees on the longest run). The pulley bolt was glued in with WAY too much thread lock, so in the end I had to undo it by using the 'spanner against the driveshft' method, and even then it took 5-6 attempts, and lots of straining with a 6 foot long breaker bar on the nut. Eventually it came loose, but the inlet sprocket moved out of alignment during this (I figure a mixture of the loose cambelt and repeated shocks) so I had to manually realign it before changing the belt. The engine turned fine afterwards and seemed OK, so I started it and got the rather disheartening 'tapper' noise. After running it at 3000 rpm for a few moments it turned into a loud knocking noise, and the rest is history...

I've got no idea about the history of this engine - it had obviously been neglected of late, but had a (slightly overfilled) sump of pretty good oil, so my first thoughts were it had been hooned around with too little oil, spun a bearing, and then been refilled to 'fix' the problem, but the sound appears to be coming from the top end.

I'm itching to get in and tear it apart to find out what the problem really is, but my partner's banned me from working on it 'cos I've got bad bronchitis so I'm having to guess what's wrong instead

It's got a new bottom pulley so unless the cheapo one I bought is totally out of alignment that's unlikely to be it. The sound seems to be coming from somewhere between cylinders 2 and 3 rather than the cambelt end and is more of a tinny grinding noise than a tapping so I'm thinking it's not a 'valve meet piston' situation, or duff / incorrectly fitted belt components.

Only thing I can think of is possibly a failed camshaft journal, but I'm really hoping it's not that - pretty much everything else would be fixable, but that'd mean the head was toast.

The 8mm was when the engine was stopped, and not pinned. There was still quite a significant amount of play when the pulleys were pinned too, though I didn't bother to measure how much.

Redoing the compression test's defo the first step when I'm allowed to play with it again, as will be rechecking the camshaft timing. Presumably it'd have instantly lunched itself if the inlet valves were 180 degrees out of alignment, so I'm assuming that's not it, and presumably the engine would have made it's protests very well known if it had dropped a valve.

The real thing that gets me is the sort of noise it is - that grinding sound's very unlike a valve problem, and the way it went from tapping -> knocking (like a big end) -> tinny grinding was quite odd.

I really do have no idea of the condition of the engine either - I've only idled it 'til warm and driven it around 500m 'cos I was worried it would slip it's loose cambelt. I bought it with bad idle problems and intermittently running on 3, but fixed that with a replacement icv, coil pack and cleaned MAP sensor. However, it did have excellent compression readings beforehand.

I guess I'll know if I've stuffed the timing as soon as I'm allowed to play with it again

Well, at least it was quite a cheap toy so it's no big loss if I have stuffed it, though it will be rather annoying, and will confirm my 100% fail rate with Pug twin cams. I've done roughly 20-25 cambelt changes / head swaps (including non-standard) on various cars, and the only one I completely stuffed was a 1.6 gti, which I mis-timed through having to do it in a rush, and the lack of working space.

Oh well, time to start looking for another head just in case...

Ok, new development here - I managed to sneak out for 30 minutes today and found out what caused the tap -> knock -> mess.

I dropped off the camshaft cover and found the cambelt was skipping-teeth loose again! I checked the tensioner bolt was still tight - it was.

Retensioned (carefully following the guide on here and the 306 cab site), turned engine over 5 times - getting loose again. Another 5 times - loose!

I thought maybe there was a pin missing from the tensioner or something, but I can't spot anything missing compared with
Servicebox.

I'm completely at a loss, am I doing something wrong? Or is there something missing? Or have Eurocarparts sold me a duff tensioner in the cambelt kit?

...Or is my engine made out of elastic?

Tensioners definitely look the same (though the Dayco pattern part is thinner metal), but I'm wondering if the bolt's too long or if the tensioner post's worn in some way.

And checking if it really is a 136 tooth belt rather than 137 is definitely a good idea - Eurocarparts have had a few 'fails' recently IME so it's entirely possible they've given me the wrong belt.

Whatever, I've got to get to the bottom of this - it's really bugging me...

kind of, the front idler design has been changed, using a much shorter bolt, even the supplied bolt bottomed out in the block so a washer was used, however it wouldn't lead to it coming loose, it just never clamped the idler sufficiently.

do you have the mechanicla eccentric tensioner and 136t belt or the sprung tensioner and 137 belt?

________________________________________

need a part number? get on here - http://public.servicebox.peugeot.com

Bring on the Trumpets.

Checked out Servicebox - the same part numbers are listed for Ph1-2.5 manual tensioner / bolt / post on both the gti6 and the standard j4rs twin cam, no mention of replacement part numbers or anything.

That's quite a sneaky one; I wonder how many 'tappers' have been created by this manual tensioner mixup?

where's the 3rd cully? I only see two on three pics


its a crossover on the pulley design, not three different belts/tensioners.

________________________________________

need a part number? get on here - http://public.servicebox.peugeot.com

Bring on the Trumpets.

I did a bit of googling around, and it looks like the tensioner rotating on it's post (or the post itself turning) is, if not a really common occurrence, certainly something which has happened to a few people.

I've knocked together a simple check which might save a few people from hitting similar issues, but I'd better not try and fiddle with the existing guide:


[i]One or two people have found out the tensioner works loose despite being tensioned and locked correctly, which will result in a very loose cambelt. This in turn will cause poor running, and will cause valves to hit pistons if the cambelt skips a tooth or two.

Before fitting the new cambelt, fit the new tensioner and tighten the tensioner locking bolt up to 20nm. Insert the tensioner adjustment tool and try to turn the tensioner with a light pressure (about 10nm). If you can turn the tensioner, either the locking bolt isn't tightening up against the tensioner or the tensioner post has worked loose. In the first case, your best bet is probably to return the cambelt kit and get a different make, in the second a tiny bit of loctite will hold the post in place when it's retightened.

Once checked, undo the tensioner locking bolt and continue fitting the cambelt following the guide.[/i]

Would be the bolts causing issues not the belt kit.

________________________________________

need a part number? get on here - http://public.servicebox.peugeot.com

Bring on the Trumpets.

NO joy with getting anything from Eurocarparts about this so I gave up, sold the block to someone with main bearing failure, kept the head for future playing and scrapped the '6. It's now been replaced with another '6 - a 2000 moonstone with 75k on the clock and roll damage; think I'll be fitting a genuine Peugeot part to this one

I'm planning to be very careful with this new engine (it's last chance saloon for the cab ) so I've treated myself to some (supposedly) genuine timing pins rather than drill bits, an alloy pulley and I'll be buying a genuine Pug cambelt kit to be on the safe side too.

Hopefully removing the pulley on this one won't be such a hassle - despite the car standing for 4 years it's nowhere near as badly rotted as my last donor, so the pulley bolt won't be rusted in place, and hopefully I won't be fighting against a whole tube of threadlock either!