clkindred Posted June 4, 2017 Share Posted June 4, 2017 Well guys, I was driving to work and the engine died. No warning, no drama, just stopped. I coasted over the top of the hill I was on and over to the side of the road. I quick look for obvious problems turned up nothing. So I called in to work saying I would not make it in, and had it towed back home. Looking first at either fuel or ignition problems because there was no indication of mechanical problems. Pulled the #1 plug and checked for spark, nothing, no spark. I had replaced the distributor not too long ago with a Nissan unit, I pulled the cap off to look for signs of the coil arching, or just issues with the coil in general. The coil looked good, and ohm'd out the same as the old coil I had out of the old dizzy. (The old dizzy had a bad cam angle sensor, coil was still good) although I realize you need a high voltage tester to really find issues in coils unless the winding breakdown is major. It was at this point I found the rotor was not spinning with the engine, I'm thinking "that's not good" So I pull the whole dizzy out to check to see if it is seized and broke the drive gear off the bottom. Again, everything looked great. After re-confirming that the dizzy does not turn with the engine, I figured the timing belt had broken. I ordered a t-belt and water pump kit manufactured by AISIN thinking the quickest way to tell if the valves are trashed is to put a new belt on and try to run it. I can't really compression test the cylinders without the cams turning it time with the crank, at least not that I know of. Now I get to the teardown onto the timing cover, which was fairly quick because I had been in there before a few years ago to do the water pump and t belt. I confirmed a broken timing belt, kinda made a mess in there with belt fibers all over. The original t belt and water pump were replaced at 127,000 miles. 27,000 miles overdue, but other than the leaking water pump, the t belt looked fine, although not as tight as a new one. The water pump and t belt were local auto parts store sourced, I think the w pump was beck arnley and I can't remember the maker of the belt. I'm at about 198,000 miles now. So now I'm doing three things, waiting for my parts to arrive, hoping I did not trash the valves, and pondering what could be the cause of the belt breaking so soon. I noticed the replacement w pump had started to leak, as well as the passenger side cam seal. Could those sources of contamination ruin the belt? I'm holding out hope on the top end being OK, I did not notice any mechanical banging, clanking or clicking when it stopped. I recall different opinions regarding the VG33 being an interference engine or not. Perhaps it is not and a broken t belt is not an automatic scrap metal maker. Or it is, and luck may save you? Anyway, sorry for the long post, I will update the fate of the engine when I learn it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onespiritbrain Posted June 4, 2017 Share Posted June 4, 2017 So sorry.. maybe everything will be alright! I am interested to know about the cause of the belt break. How tight was the belt when you replaced it 70k miles ago? Before I ruined my old engine I did the tb and I believe I over tightened the belt.. it whined with the engine RPM. I didn't make it to premature failure of the tb because, like I said, I killed the engine before it had a chance to break. Anyway, I am watching this thread to see your results. And even if you have some bent valves, maybe you could bring her back to life! I am going to pray for you. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clkindred Posted June 4, 2017 Author Share Posted June 4, 2017 Thanks for the prayers! I was able to twist the belt 90 degrees between cam sprockets, that's how I determined the tension. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slartibartfast Posted June 5, 2017 Share Posted June 5, 2017 That sucks! Shredded belt makes me wonder if the tensioner failed or something. The pictures I've seen of failed timing belts (haven't had one quit on me) look like the teeth just strip off. Maybe the leaking coolant weakened it enough to kill it--I don't know for sure but I do remember hearing that coolant's bad for timing belts. The only non-interference VG33 was in a minivan. You may have gotten lucky but I wouldn't count on it. The usual way to test is to slap a belt on it and then check compression. Either you'll find out that you dodged a bullet or you'll know which head needs to come off. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clkindred Posted June 8, 2017 Author Share Posted June 8, 2017 Thanks for the replies, I received my parts and I'm in the middle of putting the new w pump and t belt in. The old belt had literally broken, snapped, with what looks like half an inch missing. The two broken ends did not "fit" back together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clkindred Posted June 9, 2017 Author Share Posted June 9, 2017 Bad news.... no V8 swap for me because the PATHY LIVES!!! I'm thinking about going out and buying a lottery ticket. Put it back together and it fired right up! Runs like nothing ever happened. Getting the timing set up was fun, because the belt broke and scrambled the positions of the cams and crank. I'm going to go get some dinner because I have not eaten all day. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamzan Posted June 9, 2017 Share Posted June 9, 2017 I feel like VG33E are "less" interference than VG30E. I have not heard of many 3.0 surviving a break, but a lot of 3.3L. Between the Xterra and pathy alike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slartibartfast Posted June 9, 2017 Share Posted June 9, 2017 Nice! Good to hear a happy ending to one of these. Yeah, I've read that the VG33 only interferes by a very small amount... the cams probably stopped in just the right position to where none of the valves was extended enough to make contact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clkindred Posted June 10, 2017 Author Share Posted June 10, 2017 I'm just happy to have the pathy back. One thing to note, I have read while changing the t belt, that one should not force the cams in either direction while the belt is off. Makes sense because that could create the same contact with the pistons that we all dread. Well, because my timing was all scrambled by the broken belt, I had no choice but to wrench the cams to their timing marks. In fact, I spun both cams and crank around and around checking to see if I could "feel" anything wrong, and to get them lined up. This carelessness of mine also seemed to have done zero harm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citron Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 I don't think you could damage anything spinning it by hand, unless your a gorilla. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slartibartfast Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 I'd expect you'd notice the sudden increase in resistance. And if the overlap is small, and the lifters are collapsed because there's no oil pressure with the engine off, they might not hit anyway. Just speculation. Again, good to hear it survived! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clkindred Posted June 10, 2017 Author Share Posted June 10, 2017 Yea, and not being connected together with the timing belt, perhaps any contacting part simply pushed the other out of the way. I did not pay attention to say, the cams moving a little when turning over the crank. This experience has made the timing belt change on these engines much less stressful for me. I'm not ignoring the possibility of damage, but the things that worried me before like "the cam moved, what do I do?" Or, "there is no matching mark on the oil pump to match with the crank sprocket, how do I know if this is right?" These worries have been eliminated. The marks are matched for the cams to set their position for TDC, the tooth count from the left cam (driver side) to the mark of the crank sprocket determine where the crank should be in relation to the cam, and tooth count between cams confirms their relation to each other. My little joke about the V8 swap, while waiting for my parts and considering the top ends could be trash, I went over a few options, replacement vehicle, replacement engine (VG33E), rebuild heads, or replace engine (bigger engine). Although an engine swap with a different engine is probably the least wise path to take, I can't stop thinking about it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citron Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 I would love to do an unusual swap, something with lots of low torque, like a 300 straight six. But mine is mainly off road, not a DD. It is mainly a pipe dream, I will run the VG until it dies and go from there. Unless you want to do burn outs and sling lots of mud, I don't see the point of dropping a V8 in these. But I am more of a slow and steady, creep through the obstacle with as little wheel spin as possible sort of off roader. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clkindred Posted June 10, 2017 Author Share Posted June 10, 2017 Yea, no real reason for V8. But it would be nice to be able to pass a slow car on a two lane road at 60mph without needing half a mile of empty opposing lane. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Citron Posted June 10, 2017 Share Posted June 10, 2017 Lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slartibartfast Posted June 11, 2017 Share Posted June 11, 2017 You think you've got it bad, try passing with the 3.0! But that is pretty much the reasoning that's got my dad's TR4a torn apart: it didn't have a good passing gear. So we're installing a passing gear. It just happens to be inside a Tremec box, which just happens to be mated to a roller-cam 302 that should put out double what the old four-pot did. It's a practical thing, really! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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