Camshaft snapped

[DANZR']

..my camshaft snapped 2 weeks ago, 4 days after i bought it

Havent got a clue why,
an oil leak appeared after a couple of days and that was all that seemed wrong with it! Not the sort of thing i thought would be very common, especially as the car was supposed to have had an engine rebuild 3500 miles ago.Is there a common reason for this :?:

 

[Fast Guy]

Was the camshaft new/second hand and which make? :shock:

I think I've heard of one other snapping and it isn't a common cam on our cars as far as I know, that's why I was wondering what make yours was.

 

[DANZR']

It was just a standard cam maybe something went wrong with the rebuild when the previous owner had it! Only one snapped and it was near the left hand side.

 

[Fast Guy]

Has it bent any valves as a result?

 

[DANZR']

yeah a few of them and ive been told the head is knackered.Timing chain managed to stay in one piece though.will be stripping it soon to find exactly whats broke. Just got very unlucky haven't had a real chance to enjoy it yet. lol

 

[Innovate Performance]

you may find that one of the shims or something has been jammed in the head and has been cutting on to the cam. I have seen this happen on other cars . The other possible answer is the timming chain tensioner is Boll**cked and the timming jummped this can brake cams if it hit hard enought .

feel Sorry for you.

 

[austingtir]

Warped head can cause camshafts to break. Must be pretty bad if that caused it. Pretty rare for heads to warp aswell.

Should be able to see that if you take a staight edge and some feeler gauges. 4cyl are meant to be within .002" across the surface or something like that.

Sounds pretty dodgy if it was only built recently sounds like someone stuffed up maybe.

 

[DANZR']

Going to look at another engine tomorow so hopefully back on the road after crimbo.

 

[Mr GTiR]

pm sent fella.

hope you get it sorted out soon.

 

[chris-b]

sounds like it posibly wasnt tightened down properly. seen it happen, undoing one, cracked in half!
i.e fully tightening one end down without the other end,
wont bend just cracks ( hairline crack-then fails) or shatters

 

[smcnairn]

Timing chain tensioner...A question for yous when and how often should the tensioner be changed?? Just something that popped into my head when that was mentioned above??