Xantia 1.9TD - dead, following loud engine noise.

mattiker · Post by **mattiker** » 13 Dec 2010, 10:51

Hi All.

Hope you can offer some words of wisdom...here's the story.

Had the MOT done on friday, cost £280 - 3 new tyres, 1 bulb, new LHM fuild/filters.

Following day the girlfriend is driving it, a loud slapping noise is coming from engine. Turns out it was the Auxillary belt - half shredded, part of it was flapping against every thing. I think this is odd, that this happened the day after the MOT....and that last year I had it replaced.

I replaced the Aux belt yesterday. All seams OK...but today girlfriend had to stop again - loud engine noise (rattling) said it sounded bad. She checked the Aux belt and it was intact and running round fine. She carried on her journey only to find the engine completely died shortly after - now wont even turn. I've not had a look at it yet but I fear it is the timing belt. Any ideas?

What is odd is that I had the timing belt replaced last year (same time as Aux belt).

Hope you can offer advice.

Thank you!

Matt

spider · Post by **spider** » 13 Dec 2010, 11:29

It does sound like that.

I would suspect some of the 'shreddings' from the ancillary belt have got inside the cambelt cover and lifted it or otherwise done something.

It is usual practise if an ancillary belt shreds to remove the timing belt covers for a quick check to ensure none of the remnants have got into here.

What you need to do is take the timing belt cover off and examine the belt. Hopefully it just knocked the pump timing out more than a couple of teeth as that would stop the engine, if its push the cam timing out it starts to get expensive due to potential damage.

Remove the timing belt cover and examine what you can see of the belt to ensure its still fitted ( ! ) and look for signs of bits of ancillary belt. The step after that would be to pin it up to see if its out and by how much. The other 'easy' thing to check is to take the cam cover off to check the cam has not broken.

HDI · Post by **HDI** » 13 Dec 2010, 11:34

If the aux belt comes off it can take out the cam belt if shreds of it get into the lower pulley area, so the cam belt may have jumped off.

Cam belt and aux belt need to be tensioned correctly for reliable service.
The MOT diesel emissions test requires that the engine be revved hard so if the aux belt or cam belt or both were not correctly tensioned they could have partially jumped off, most likely it sounds like the aux belt is the initial culprit.

mattiker · Post by **mattiker** » 13 Dec 2010, 11:38

I got it slightly wrong. The engine will turn over but wont start.

If you're right about the timing belt being knocked on a couple of teeth - would that account for the terrible noise?

Thanks,

Matt

mattiker · Post by **mattiker** » 13 Dec 2010, 11:42

HDI... you say the Aux belt needs to be tensioned correctly for reliable service. It had an automatic tensioner - there where two pulleys one manually tensioned and other on a spring which I had to pull back with a 3/8inch socket. Could I have got the tension wrong? How would that effect the cam belt?

Thanks!

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 13 Dec 2010, 11:46

What year is the car?
If the timing was out and it's a 97-onwards then I'd expect the engine management light to come on as it wouldn't be able to correct for the difference between the needle lift sensor and the TDC sensor, however, Jenny had a duff NLS which meant she'd run like a bag of nails, but there was no ECU light on so I can't be certain it would trigger the light.
If it was an earlier car with a fully mechanical pump, then you'd not get the ECU light come on.

With the pump timing out I'd expect the engine to sound extremely rattly and not run well at all.

Get the cam belt covers off and check all the timing holes. If the cam and crank holes are ok, then you should be alright, the crank timing hole is in the fly wheel, behind the starter motor, so it might be easier to remove the motor to get to it.
Turn the engine over by hand with a ring spanner and see what is still lined up.

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 13 Dec 2010, 11:48

mattiker wrote:HDI... you say the Aux belt needs to be tensioned correctly for reliable service. It had an automatic tensioner - there where two pulleys one manually tensioned and other on a spring which I had to pull back with a 3/8inch socket. Could I have got the tension wrong? How would that effect the cam belt?

Thanks!

When fully working, the spring on the auto tensioner keeps the correct tension, however it's needle bearings can collapse, and the eyes at the ends of the spring wear out elongating them, alowing the belt to flap.
How easy was it to pull the tensioner back against the spring?

HDI · Post by **HDI** » 13 Dec 2010, 11:50

mattiker wrote:HDI... you say the Aux belt needs to be tensioned correctly for reliable service. It had an automatic tensioner - there where two pulleys one manually tensioned and other on a spring which I had to pull back with a 3/8inch socket. Could I have got the tension wrong? How would that effect the cam belt?

Thanks!

Yes, it's still possible to run the belt without enough tension. Precedure is to slacken off the fixed tensioner puller, install belt then tension with the fixed tensioner pulley until the spring tensioner indicator is at max.

Also, another issue that can cause the aux belt to jump is a faulty crank pulley.

mattiker · Post by **mattiker** » 13 Dec 2010, 11:52

It's a 1999 S-REG. Facelift Xantia, but with the older 1.9TD engine (i.e not HDI). I dont think any lights were ON on the dash - although I wasn't there.

Thanks for your help everyone, really appreciate it. I've just got to get the car home somehow and do some investigation. I'm not sure it will be worth my time or efforts - I was planning on just selling it shortly after MOT. It's been a good car so far. Anyone interested in a project?

Cheers,

Matt

mattiker · Post by **mattiker** » 13 Dec 2010, 11:59

Xac wrote:
mattiker wrote:HDI... you say the Aux belt needs to be tensioned correctly for reliable service. It had an automatic tensioner - there where two pulleys one manually tensioned and other on a spring which I had to pull back with a 3/8inch socket. Could I have got the tension wrong? How would that effect the cam belt?

Thanks!
When fully working, the spring on the auto tensioner keeps the correct tension, however it's needle bearings can collapse, and the eyes at the ends of the spring wear out elongating them, alowing the belt to flap.
How easy was it to pull the tensioner back against the spring?

There was a good amount of tension in the spring, had to pull pretty hard on it, whilst the gf put a metal rod in the hole to hold it. The Aux belt is still on and looks fine - just cant see how this could be related to the timing belt.

Cheers

Xaccers · Post by **Xaccers** » 13 Dec 2010, 12:38

mattiker wrote: There was a good amount of tension in the spring, had to pull pretty hard on it, whilst the gf put a metal rod in the hole to hold it. The Aux belt is still on and looks fine - just cant see how this could be related to the timing belt.

Cheers

If it was hard to pull back on the tensioner, then chances are it needs replacing.

As for how the aux relates to your timing belt, well with the previous one shredding, bits can get up into the timing belt covers, bouncing around until they get snagged between one of the sprockets and the belt causing the belt to slip.
Hopefully if this has happened it's been to your fuel pump.
If it was to your crank or cam sprockets then pistons could have hit valves, breaking your cam.

Not the end of the world, just a bit of a bummer.

Without being able to hear the sound it made before it started playing up, we're just going through possibilities, as I said, it could be that the needle lift sensor was playing up so the fine tuning of the pump timing was out causing the car to sound rattly.

Easiest to check first would be the cam, so remove the cam cover and make sure the cam and it's 3 caps are all secure and not broken. Knack to get the cover off once you've removed the black plastic induction pipes is to lift the cover straight up slightly, then slide it to the side so one of the dents in the back is lined up with the metal induction pipe, then tilt the back of the cover up and pull the cover out. If the cam is broken, then it's definitely been a timing issue.

If the cam is intact, then replace the cam cover and get the top two cam belt covers off and check the timing holes.
I think the cam and fuel pump sprockets take M6 bolts, while I've always found it easiest to remove the starter motor and use the long shaft of an allen key into the flywheel hole.
As said before, use a spanner to turn the engine by hand, clockwise only via the crank pulley bolt.
If the timing is all right, then it's something else causing the problems.

citroenxm · Post by **citroenxm** » 13 Dec 2010, 12:52

It WONT be your new Aux belt thats caused the problem, but the OLD belt..

Its most likely theres a bit of the old belt that went in behind the Crank pully, but only afterwards after its been floating around it has caught your cam belt and caused a Jump...

The Likely thing to cause the belt shread is as mentioned above a DUFF Auto tensioner roller.. This can be seen from above. If you look down the side of the engine on the cam belt end and look at the tensioner, when the engine is stopped, you should be able to see if its leaning at an angle... sometimes when the engine is running it looks to be at the correct angle.. what then happens as the engine runs, is it slowly but surely digs a groove into the belt, along its length, nearest the engine, so when it finally splits through, it then disapears behind the crank... the rest you have heard.

You WILL need to take the crank pully off and the belt covers - you should likely then find a bit of black "rubber" dust in there.

Paul

falling-out-with-my-car · Post by **falling-out-with-my-car** » 13 Dec 2010, 17:13

when my spring went on the tensioner pully assembly on my s2 it was making an unbelievable amount of loud grinding noise, just replacing the tensioner pully didnt do the trick the stensioner spring was the culprit the aux belt jumped off twice because the needle rollers on the tensioner pulley had worn out only 12 months from citroen replacement.

I wouldnt mind betting that all your problems started with the tensioner pully going home and its tension spring making the noise.
it would probably be a good idea to replace these parts anyway, the aux belts rarely come off unless they are tilted off buy a worn tensioner pulley.

Dommo · Post by **Dommo** » 13 Dec 2010, 18:41

Another point to add to this, my 306 had a wonky (broken) auxillary belt tensioner, the one you and your GF had to work on to move and hold in place.

It wasn't bad enough to throw the AUX belt off my 306 in normal running, but when the engine was off, and left in gear, it could throw the belt off course. What would happen is if the car was facing down a hill, and was left parked up in reverse gear (or 1st gear pointing up a hill), then if I didn't pull the handbrake up hard enough and the car stops using the engine (if that makes sense), the engine would go backwards, including the aux belt. When it goes backwards it goes out of alignment and can move one tooth across. This happened a number of times in the 306 before we bit the bullet and changed the tensioner.

falling-out-with-my-car · Post by **falling-out-with-my-car** » 13 Dec 2010, 18:58

I see what you are saying, my aux belt only jumped off going uphill when the engine was under load and it jumped off twice on the same bit of road.