please tell me the Sambar is Non-Interference..

So as I'm coming over the Portman bridge today (highway 1...) my sambar just dies. After a nerve racking trip over the bridge with no power I get it towed to my friends shop.

pop the belt cover and as I expected, the belts is fubar. a melted pile of rubber. I only have 55 000km on it keep in mind. Upon closer inspection the water pump siezed, burned up the belt and of course it snapped finaly.

(so to those of you who are doing preventaive maintance by doing the belt.. DO THE WATER PUMP TO!!)

so please please please tell me my valves arn't all L shaped... or is this an interference motor....

 

Cam has no luck else the water pump wouldn't have froze on him! Cam, Colin doesn't specifically mention interference or not, but, he seems to have got it running again after the belt went so ....

 

well..guess my Scott Voltage is getting put on hold agian..


gonna pick up a pump and belt kit and see what happens.

 

A couple of quick, cheap tests should give you the answer.

First, take out all the spark plugs and see if they are damaged. If a valve has broken off it would have been flying around in there and the plug would almost certainly have some damage.

If the plugs look good turn the engine over by hand and see if it sounds OK. With the plugs out and the trans in neutral you should be able to turn it over pretty easily. If it is an interference configuration you should hear something scraping or it should be difficult to turn.

If all that works try turning the cam and see if that is noisy or jammed.

I'm betting you'll know for sure if you do these things.

 

ya we tried to turn the cam, all seemed good, plug were good and no visible damage through plug hole.. not that you can see much.

put the new belt and pum pin today truck fired up 1st crank.

so I'm going to assume these are non-interference.

 

Nice. Glad it worked and happy to hear that losing the belt doesn't mean losing the engine.

 

Yes the belt is the cheap/easy part. Make sure to change the tensioner, and pulley seals along with the water pump.

PS: Are you the guy with the BMW 3-series rims??

 

If you saw a silver Sambar with the 3 series rims on it, it should be Cam. He "borrowed" the rims from me when he traded the Sambar from me.

 

sweet non-interference!!! Not too many new vehicles are non-interference these days and the average consumer won't know the difference or significance. As modern vehicles age and get sold off to new owners some poor consumer is going to get a nice car with a bad belt and BAM.

The Yugo garnered a bad reputation for loosing engines do to this fact. People bought a cheap car, treated it like one thus neglecting to have regular service checks etc.

 

Silver Sambar, BMW 3 series wheels, wooden 4 slot bike rack in the bed, flood lamps on the head ache rack, 5 foot CB whip antenna in the middle. Truck has been lovingly dubbed "Bender" by my GF.

 

This remind me that I need to do my belt at 50k.

 

probably evil in her eyes lol

 

I'm all for being proactive, but non-interference means you could just buy the parts at 50k and drive it until the belt goes. I guess it depends on your tolerance for inconvenience.

Thing is, When you change the belt you pretty much have to replace the tensioner, water pump, cam seal at the same time. The cost is not trivial so if you can get 75 or 80 out of it, I say try to.

My style would be to start carrying, tools, spare parts,and service manual at about 60K. Then if it isn't too cold out when the belt goes I just call in sick and get 'er done right there in the Starbucks parking lot.

__D
* *

 

not worth the risk IMO. what if it goes while you are pulling out infront of a loaded semi truck... or even worse.. what if it breaks infront of a hot chick! She may laugh even more then they usualy laugh at Kei Trucks...:frustration:

 

Agreed .

It's my daily for now