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Okay, I thought some of you might like to see what happens when it all goes wrong setting up the cam timing on an engine.
The engine in question is a z10xe fitted into a Corsa-C 2003 Active.
Car was purchased the other week for a friends stepdaughter to replace her Fiat Punto which I condemned on safety reasons (it just wasn't). Got the car home and did a quick service on it for her (plugs, filters, etc...) and arranged for it to go into my work the week after (yesterday in fact) for a timing chain kit to be fitted as a precautionary measure (I work for a Vauxhall dealer so it is just easier) as I know these are a weak point in this engine.
So, she goes away with it for a couple of days and then I get a phone call saying that the car has lost power and the EML is on. Go to where it is to inspect it and end up getting it recovered by the AA as it sounded reasonably terminal.
Get it back to my place and take the rocker cover off. Everything looks fine. Crank it over and we have oil pressure. Take the spark plugs out to check compression and number 2 spark plug is as tight as a wotsit and strips the thread. Evidence to why is soon clear
The bottom of the spark plug is completely obliterated, so I turned it into a keyring.
Time for a closer look. Out comes the Endoscope and it soon becomes clear just how bad it really is
So, car gets pushed into the corner and today I decided to take the engine out for closer inspection
Half hour later. Fortunately, the a/c needed regassing anyway, so no aggrevation there.
Fifteen minutes after a tea break and we started again
Now the real extent of the damage is clear
Number 1 piston
Number 2 piston
Number 1 valves (1 inlet slightly bent and parts of number 2 inlet valve sitting on top of piston)
Number 2 valves (note half of the valve still welded into the valve guide and chamber scrambled)
Number 3 valves
One scrap block
Before the engine came apart, I checked the chain timing and found it to be a couple of teeth out. Checked the cylinder head measurements and it looks like the cylinder head has been over-skimmed @ some point, resulting in the timing chain tensioner not being able to compensate for the amount of slack and when it got a run down the motorway, it simply span fast enough to skip a tooth which then snowballed into an all-out coming together of parts that should not. The engine had been reassembled with the original chain and tensioner, etc.. instead of new ones. What makes it worse is that the kid she bought it from had been told that his local garage had fitted a new (secondhand replacement) engine previously after the original died a death and yet it is still on the original engine now just with an overskimmed cylinder head, so he got ripped off in the beginning.
What do you all think????
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Who reused the chain and tensioner then?
Originally Posted by EY 
