Aux belt shredded

[Mark]

The engine cut out at around idle speed and wouldn't restart. I was presented with shreds of aux belt when opening the bonnet. I think the auxiliary belt has caused the cambelt to jump but not to the extent of locking the engine. Will valve damage or any other damage have been caused? Is it likely that with retiming and fitting new belts, the engine will live on?

Longer/more detailed story:

This afternoon I was driving along, heard a noise thinking it was one of the front inner arch covers chafing on the tyre (as I had one off the other day so thought maybe I didn’t secure it properly). I was going slow down a country lane at the time and was going to pull over where there was space about 100 metres down the road. Next thing I know, the engine had cut out. Feeling a bit confused, I thought it might have stalled by being at idle speed in third (although it had never done it before) so I tried restarting it several times. The engine turned over, maybe slightly slower than usual, but wouldn’t start. I pushed it to a pull-in and upon opening the bonnet saw shreds of auxiliary belt but half the belt was still there. I cut off the shreds that were hanging off and tried starting it again, which resulted in the engine turning over, not firing but shaking more than usual so I quickly stopped and realised that the reason it wouldn’t restart is because a bit must have got under the cambelt and caused it to jump a tooth or few, hence why the engine stopped.

Thanks in advance

[DarkInferno]

Could be fine.... could be dead...

I'd clean away any traces of aux belt... pop the top cover and check the timing and see how far out it is if its out at all... and obviously check there is no aux belt under the cam belt

When I had something similar happen the reason it wouldn't start after was because the extra current drawn by the starter trhing to turn it over while locked solid with the aux belt had burnt out my ground cables to the battery. So when I tried to start it the extra resistance made it too sluggish turning over to start (and the volt drop was heating up the cable rather then the glow plugs)

Or you could have just drained the battery by trying to get it restarted.

Or it jumped lots of teeth and you have valve chunks flying round in the cylinders :/

Assuming the cam belt is still fine to test with (but quite possibly worth changing), if its timed up and with a good battery (and cables made from copper and not hopes and dreams) it should start fine with no aux belt.

[Seb_Ryan]

I had this happen twice, new tension and new cambelt kit and she was fine, was out about 2/3 teeth as well iirc

[Mark]

Thanks, I have got the new belts, so with any luck hopefully it will survive - I didn't want to even risk testing with the old cambelt, although it probably isn't too bad.

Today I set about retiming it and changing the belt, however I'm struggling to undo the crank pulley bolt. I have a Clarke electric impact gun but it won't shift it. I've tried with a ratchet and short scaffold bar over it but there seems to be a lot of give in the ratchet so I don't trust it not to break. Any ideas on what to do as I'm not getting anywhere with it?

[Mark]

Just got the pulley bolt out - had to have more faith in using a scaffold bar over the ratchet!

[Mark]

Turned out there was a lot of auxiliary belt wrapped around the crank sprocket and the cambelt had slipped one tooth. Timed it up and fitted a new belt and luckily it is running again I must have been fortunate that it happened at a low engine speed.