DW8 engine caput

[head-mechanics.co.uk]

oh dear. think my engine has died a horrible death.

yesterday on the way back from dropping a car of down in weymouth the alternator belt snapped. i chuckled thought o well 10-15 to replace. pulled over immediately stopped and phoned the rac. when stopped i checked it ticked over and suddenly the oil and stop command illuminated. i thought this odd but perhaps as the power steering died it might be linked although i doubted very much. well i waited 45 to be rescued and they towed me to a nearby pub until the powerlift could come and take me home. after he dropped me off i started the van to turn it around ready for the powerlift. in the 30-40 seconds it was running i heard i tink sound just like a bolt snapping and it stopped dead and will not turn over at all. OH DEAR.

any guesses ill reveal all tonight...... i hope.??

[steelcityuk]

Hi,

I'm not sure what car you have but if a hydraulic Citroen then the snapping of the 'fanbelt' will lead to the stop command.

At a rough guess I'd say that part of the belt has wrapped itself around the cambelt pulley altering the mechanical engine timing leading to the metallic sound of the piston meeting a valve. A similar case was shown in Car Mechanics this month.

Steve.

[CitroJim]

Oh dear, that is terrible

That's more than just a jumpy cambelt and a busted cam If it was, it would still turn over.

Is this the DW8 you've just rebuilt?

It looks like it suffered a catastrophic loss of oil pressure. I wonder if the crank pulley bolt came loose and thus interrupted oil pump drive?

[head-mechanics.co.uk]

it is the dispatch van. and the auxillary belt was dring the power steering and alternator. i just dont think that if the oil pump failed it would stop the van from turning over so suddenly i would of expected a grinding noise. prolonged failure not instant. so far cambelt and timing is perfect as im taking it apart. i think i no exactly whats gone on it im just puzzled as why it has. are the dw8 engines strong engines. i mean it has done 335,000 miles and is perfect. well WAS. so cant be that bad an engine but in a van which is tooled up must weight over 2 tonne. so is it up to that kind of work.???

[myglaren]

i just dont think that if the oil pump failed it would stop the van from turning over so suddenly i would of expected a grinding noise. prolonged failure not instant.

My Volvo lost oil prssure to the head (clogged oilways) and it just stopped without any warning. The camshaft bearings were torn to pieces.
It stopped so sudenly that the belt was fine. Put a new head on it and even refitted the belt.

That was a monumental mistake as I think I reversed it. It got me within 5 miles of home (70 miles) and snapped. Bought a new belt, set the timing and fitted it and off it went, did another 40,000 miles before I scrapped it and it was still running as well as ever.

[head-mechanics.co.uk]

the oil pressure was only lost when i restarted the car 10 mins after i originally stopped. when the belt went only the battery light came on. which was why the oil light and stop commant puzzled me?

luckily it was only idleing when it stopped and not at full revs with a car on a dolly behind.

PHEW!!

[CitroJim]

are the dw8 engines strong engines. .???

As they're based on the XUD9, yes, they are strong engines intrinsically and generally they give very little bottom-end bother even at stratospheric mileages. Overall, this applies to all the XU family, the only known issue is Mi16 16V engines having a habit of spinning big-end shells and wrecking crankshafts and conrods as a result.

There was a duff batch of XUD9Ts at one time that had weak conrods fitted. I think, if I have the right end of the stick, they were fitted with N/A conrods in error and in the Turbo motor thy did have a bit of a habit of making a bid for freedom through the block.

I'm sitting here anxious to know what "went" in your engine...

[head-mechanics.co.uk]

well f$$c**d is the word to describe the engine there are many things wrong.

1) the camshaft is scored on the middle shell and needs grinding down and shims fitted. perhaps of a blocked oil channel or a week oil pump.

2) timing has slipped. all four exhaust valves have contacted the pistons and will all need replacing

3) head gasket has gone and block warped.

all in all not the best. i think part of the auxillary belt failed before i noticed it. part of it fell into the timing belt and altered the timing. i then ran it for some distance. the belt finnaly failed. the head gasket failed due to the heat created by the engine running at the wrong timing. the tink was just noticeable when it cut out as the valve must have struck the piston at the exact moment it stopped. i hope to have it sorted by the end of tommorow but no the best. .

[myglaren]

You might be as well off with a second hand or refurbished head with all that going on.

[reblack68]

Is the DW8 engine really any good? I seem to see an awful lot of Peugeot/Citroen vans on eBay that need an engine.

It's strange because it's a sort of XUD/HDi hybrid and both these engines are very strong.

[CitroJim]

1) the camshaft is scored on the middle shell and needs grinding down and shims fitted. perhaps of a blocked oil channel or a week oil pump.

Ahh When it blew up previously and broke the cam, did it also break any cam caps?

I was involved with an XUD9 that broke its cambelt, shattered the camshaft and broke a couple of cam bearing caps. The owner replaced the cam and replaced the broken caps with some from another old head. Not long after, shortly after a tensioner problem, the cam broke again. I have the remains of the cam on my desk at work. One journal seized more or less solid and this was the journal that had previously broke the cap.

The cam bearings are line-bored when the head is made and as a result, the cam bearing caps are totally unique to that head. They cannot be replaced with ones from another head. If you do, you risk a cam seizure. If you have broken caps, the ONLY solution is to replace the head It might be possible to "scrape" them or shim them to make them sort of fit but it'll never be fully satisfactory.

I'd be surprised if your block is warped head maybe, but not the block.

Good luck on getting it back on the road today

[steelcityuk]

It does seem that when the lights come it's better to investigate than just assume it'll be alright. It's just about exactly what happened in the Car Mechanics story.

Steve.

[head-mechanics.co.uk]

no originally the head was replaced as yes the caps are matched to the head and the camshaft.

i personally feel that with shims it will be as good as originall. heads arent that easy to come across. when i got the last head i had to do a 300 mile round trip. and fuel pumps are even harder to get at a reasonable price.

[f00lzz]

When my Xantia 1.9TD auxillary belt shredded it found it's way inside the cambelt cover, destroyed the cambelt, broke cam pulley, broke camshaft into three pieces etc etc. (auxillary belt was like a ball of melted rubber).Details plus pics somewhere on here in the database presumeably... the remedy was an exchange head from somewhere near Shrewsbury, brilliant service, I've had the missfortune to require their service on a Rover 213 twin cam, an AX 1.4 Deisel and Xant 1.9TD. If you want the address/phone number I will find it for you, but it should be in the database.

[head-mechanics.co.uk]

well its back up and running, was a nightmare to bleed and i hate doing the fuel timing even with the pins and the pulleys central it always misfires. i have to tweek to get it to run ok. done 350 miles in it today and its holding up. but the oil pump is definately on the way out. any1 now of any good places.

many thanks