Hi all,
I am currently trying to fix my astra. I have found that the camshaft rockers have broken as discussed in previous posts. Whilst looking for what caused this, I have found the Woodruff key on the crankshaft pulley has completely worn away. Also the groove in the crankshaft has also been slightly rounded off. This is obviously what caused the timing to go.
I was wondering if the only solution is to replace the camshaft/pulley? I'm guessing this would be very pricey at a garage. I would be keen to do it myself although I don't have an engine crane at present.
Any advice would be much appreciated,
cheers,
Nick.
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you state that the crankshaft pulley is worn and the woodruff key is rounded then talk of replacing camshaft pulley could you please clarify, if the rockers have broken then there is a very high chance that there is valve damage so a fair amount of work is involved just to get to a stage where you could do a compresion test, may be worth investigating the availability of another engine/car
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If some of the rockers are broken then the chances of valve damage on these is fairly low. The rockers in question are almost certainly genuine ones, and they do tend to break quite quickly and spare the valves.
As for your crankshaft pulley problem I suspect it's been loose for a while which has been the cause of the problem, but something I did once on my wife's Daihatsu Charade many years ago which might help you. She had exactly the same trouble with the woodruff key worn, which in turn caused wear on the crankshaft to a considerable degree. She broke down on the way home one night after it finally gave way, so I went out to tow her home. The symptom she described to me was that the cambelt had broken, which of course at first it would seem that it had. I got a new woodruff key and a pulley from a breakers yard, and using bearing and stud loctite put it back together. I did have to remove the head to replace a couple of damaged valves.
She had the car for another three years before selling it, and never had any trouble with that again. It might not come apart quite so easily next time though, although there may never be a need for it to. The crankshaft pulley does bolt onto the sprocket, and so shouldn't affect future cambelt changes.
So it might be worth having a go at that rather than a replacement engine or costly time consuming rebuild.....
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Thats a good idea. I think that would be my only option as any engine rebuild would be too costly in relation to the value of the car.
Only 4 of the camshaft rockers have broken but I think it would be best to replace all 8. Is this right?
Thanks for the info,
nick.
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>>best to replace all 8
Fit 4, and see if it runs OK. If it does, fit the other 4.
Number_Cruncher
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if they aint broken then the valves hav'nt hit the pistons so no point in changeing them
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Hi all,
I would just like to thank all you guys for the advice. I have got it running again. I found a spare cylinder head at a scrapyard (£30) and took all the rocker arms and spare crankshaft sprocket from the engine.
All four exhaust valves were bent on my car so I bought a set from ebay for £13. Dealer was charging £57 per valve! I kept the 4 inlet rocker arms but replaced the others from the spare cylinder head. Had to get new bolts/gasket/belt.
For the sprocket, I used the loctite 271 as advised on this forum. The battery was flat upon restarting but after a push start, it started first time! much to my amazement. It's been running ever since...touch wood. Updated my AA membership to!
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