Td Cambelt Broken

[Guest paul29690]

Hi, am looking at buying an early 1995 ZX TD estate which has a brokn cambelt. Told that the ZX diesel engine design means that the head gear is not damaged in the event that the balt brakes. Can anyone confirm this please. Also if this turns out to be a load of tosh which ZX diesel estate model should I be looking for. The widh of this car, particularly the roof and roof bars makes it an ideal load lugger. Any general advice of any kind would be appreciated.

 

Thanks, Paul

[kfk]

The Valves do contact the pistons if the belt snaps, the camshaft does break if the belt snaps, the camshaft bearing caps do crack if the cambelt snaps......you will need a new head if the cambelt snaps!

 

Its unlikely you will be lucky......expect the worse!

[Johndouglas]

And maybe new pistons................. Your best bet would be to look for a replacement engine. There are other models with the same engine.

[ArticFox]

Hi Paul,

 

I'm not aware of any diesel engines being non-interference - I'm 90% sure they're all interference types, so a snapped cambelt will always result in valve/piston damage as a minimum.

 

The 1.9TD engine is a Peugeot (XUD) design of course, and is used in loads of cars (306, 406, ZX, Xantia to name a few) so depending upon your negotiating ability, you may be able to pick up the estate for pennies and get a secondhand engine fitted by a local garage - just make sure you get the same type (ie turbo, turbo with intercooler) or else you may have insurance problems - it'll be classified as modified if a different type is fitted.

 

Alternatively, just walk away and look for another one ;)

[Johndouglas]

Although a Xantia or BX engine will be similar to what you want, the engines will give you problems when it comes to fitting the vacuum pump. I would steer clear of them.

[kfk]

It should also be considdered that externally and engine maybe ok, but on the inside it could be completely different with regard to cam profiles and valve sizes.

 

I speak from experience on this.......many years ago a customer came in with a BX16 petrol he was having problems with, it turned out the engine he had fitted into it came from a peugeot 205. The cylinderheads and injection sytems were totally different, the weights of the cars were different sothe internal mapping of the injection ecus were wrong.......and we wernt told about this untill we had wasted a good few hours.

 

With the diesel engines the main problems are Bosch/lucas injection systems, wiring harness connectors on sensors, camshaft mounted vacuum pumps,

 

If it looks like it will fit, it probably will.....doesnt mean it will ever run right though.