The Mod I Didn't Want!

[Appealing]

These are extracts from my legal claim against a local Mechanical service company.... (RAC AND BOSCH Approved!!).

In August 2009, My car was serviced by a local company as a normal course of maintenance for the 100,000 km service.

This entailed changing of the timing belt, Tensioner bearing, Idler, bearing and at my request the water pump. All new parts were supplied. The km's on the car were 119,000. No fault had ever shown up on this engine, except a faulty coil pack on the ignition system.

No dismantling had ever been undertaken on the front area of this engine, before that service.

As such it was as Nissan built it, straight from the factory.

On Saturday 13th February the engine in my Series 2 stopped seemingly for no reason. I tried to restart it.

It would not start. I managed to get the car into a parking bay, and rang the RAC, the engine would not turn any more than about 45deg. Arrangements were made to transport the vehicle to my home.

Next day....

The front upper covers of the engine were removed and it showed that the idler bolt had broken thereby releasing the tension on the timing belt and allowing the valve train to go out of timing with the crank shaft.

On close inspection after fishing the idler pulley from the lower cover and belt, it was clear to see that the bolt had broken level with the idler where it would meet the engine block. There was however over 10mm of broken stud left protruding from the engine block. The broken bolt stud was only held in the engine block by about 2 threads. This clearly showed that the bolt had been unwound before the breakage occurred. As once the bolt had broken and the engine stopped rotating (almost immediately), no further unwinding of the bolt could take place, due to the disconnection of parts.

There are also noticeable marks and wearing on the bolt approximately 10mm under the head of the bolt. These can be clearly seen in the attached photo.

And here is what we found after I eventually had the head removed, I wouldn't do this until they gave me indication that they were going to pay. Luckily I don't HAVE to use my car.

And the new modded head, 5 valves per cylinder anyone?

This happened at a little above idle.... I was actually slowing down and had my foot on the brake, doing less than 30kph!!

After over 4 months of arguing and getting quotes etc, finally the mechanics insurer are settling.....

I will have approx $9000 to spend on putting another engine into the Stag...... if you think that's a lot, well it isn't..... we'll spend it all I think.

So watch this space for more info and pics as the rebuild starts......

Planning a ball bearing Garret internals to fit the stock turbo (cause as you can imagine mine is Rooted!).

Probably a Nistune piggy back to control it all and not lose the auto functions, etc.

Other than that, I just want the bloody thing back on the road.......

Edited June 14, 2010 by Appealing

[DaveB]

Wow, that's some carnage. Sorry to hear about your little episode there, glad you are getting it sorted but OVER 4 MONTHS later... wow.

Just would like to point out, the Nistune is not a piggy-back, it's a complete real-time-tunable ECU remap. Which I use and recommend... at the offered price of around $400 (you can afford the time off the road to post away your ECU atm, I should think ) it's the best value of anything out there, IMO. So long as your tuner can tune Nistune type 4 boards

[Duncan]

interesting! particularly that the bolt was partially unwound. (and still didn't snap at the block!)

this is far from the first timing belt tensioner bolt that has snapped, and many people on here would recommend replacing it (and the idler stud) every time the timing belt is done. From memory, Elite Dan did some interesting testing on some bolts supplied by nissan after one snapped.

[Jetwreck]

Same thing happened to me on our RB20 but at about 7,600rpm....ended up being pretty messy.....as Duncan said "many people on here would recommend replacing it (and the idler stud) every time the timing belt is done.".....I highly recommend it!

[Supa Steve]

interesting! particularly that the bolt was partially unwound. (and still didn't snap at the block!)

this is far from the first timing belt tensioner bolt that has snapped, and many people on here would recommend replacing it (and the idler stud) every time the timing belt is done. From memory, Elite Dan did some interesting testing on some bolts supplied by nissan after one snapped.

Tensioner is a stud, idler is a bolt. Its seems to be the idler bolt that is failing, also happened to NYTSKY (i read his whole thread yesterday). Using new fasteners on such a critical part of an engine seems to be the go.

[Duncan]

yes, but Dave/NYTSKY's one was the engine builder's error in not doing it up correctly, looks like the same problem here. However I've also seen and heard of correctly tensioned ones failing.

I always replace both stud and bolt on the race car motors

[wolverine]

Been there done that with the R33 (pretty sure the idler bearing seized), it stripped the timing belt. Towed it to a workshop, just for shits and giggles they installed another timing belt and turned it over with no apparent issues. Turned the key and it started like new. Mr Valve must have given Mr Piston a miss.

The timing belt was on the wall of fame for a while there.

[Appealing]

Well the amazing thing was as I said this was just over idle with the engine unloaded. I didn't hear a thing, until I tried to restart it, then the sound of what I knew would be engine damage. I still wasn't sure, the symptoms after that were same as dead battery.

The only really annoying thing for me was the way that the "Service" shop acted..... and I've known them for 20 years +. Firstly saying that it was just fatigue, and these things happen!! They didn't offer to strip it down to ascertain the damage. In the end I got fed up with playing games. I got an independent engineer's report done. The results were conclusive. The bolt was left untensioned, just as I thought. There was also a mark around the belt, that looked like the bearing had been running on it's edge (ie at an angle). This to me and the fact that it was definitely unwound after breaking, all added up to incompetence. They have looked after all my cars over a long time, but not any more.

I really didn't have a beef with the mechanic, he is a good guy. But I just wish that someone had said, "Yep, we f**ked up, let's get it fixed".

The mechanic was the head mechanic at the shop, and he wanted to do the job himself, as he knew how special the car is to me. I fully understood that he didn't do it on purpose and having 5 other mechanics to oversee, probably just got distracted. But really a "sorry" would have gone a long way! He has since left the shop over this incident, in his boss's words he was "gutted and upset at this having cost me so much money".

You've also got to love the wording on the "offer to settle", which actually says, "Without Prejudice & Without Admission of Liability"!!

So the only thing good to come from it is that the engine we found is a 54,000km one from a failed compliance, and I am going to get to bolt a few goodies on.

Thanks for the tip on ECU, I'll get it taken out and done straight away.

I've read all the topics on bolt breakage, and yeah some are a bit frightening.

It isn't a requirement (according to Nissan) to replace the bolt. But in this case, torquing it up would have saved $10,000, and a lot of inconvenience.

[gfunkk]

aww man the death of a good condition RB... my condolences

[bubba]

Sounds like a good excuse to 3L it John

[rb26stagea]

+1...Rb30's aren't the bank-breakers they used to be...

[bubba]

+1...Rb30's aren't the bank-breakers they used to be...

And if any car warranted it, it's our heavy busses. The 3L in my 32 is just silly, so much torque in such a little car.. one day teh wagon will get one too

[Duncan]

yeah the 30 pulls my lolvo round ok

[msports180]

25/30 + 11ty

That head should be salvageable?

[Appealing]

So at last this drama is nearly all over.... I had a 54,000km engine fitted and picked up the car last week. The engine is sweet. But what a job to have it done. In the end the whole engine and trans had to come out the bottom. Just have to do some tuning as it's having a nistune fitted. The std turbo is gone, (they dont mix with valve bits very well) so now have a steel impeller hi-flowed turbo on it.

It's great to have it back, just a bit of sorting to do, I'll post up the dyno results.

[GoldZilla]

Good to hear, John! Shame it was such a hassle to get sorted, but hopefully the results will be worth it.

[GTR-N1]

Good end result anyway John.

I had a 200,000Km service done on my VTiR Prelude (daily).

After stopping at a red light, I tried to take off, but the engine gave out > pushed it to the side of the road > NRMA mechanic revealed no compression. The car had done 218,000Km at that stage.

The idler bolt had bent over and snapped > timing belt stripped lengthways > valves never kissed > engine saved.

My mechanic wanted to pay for the lot; but we agreed to just share cost of parts (tow truck/belt/bolt/coolant).

[bubba]

So at last this drama is nearly all over.... I had a 54,000km engine fitted and picked up the car last week. The engine is sweet. But what a job to have it done. In the end the whole engine and trans had to come out the bottom. Just have to do some tuning as it's having a nistune fitted. The std turbo is gone, (they dont mix with valve bits very well) so now have a steel impeller hi-flowed turbo on it.

It's great to have it back, just a bit of sorting to do, I'll post up the dyno results.

Put a decent dump pipe on that hiflow, I've got a split dump pipe you can have then you'll just need an exhaust shop to knock up a 3" front pipe.