jpitman2

There is a lister in Oz who reports a case of belt mistracking, rotor button pushed forward and damaged distributor cap. Sounds like cam wheel is loose and moving forward.
ANybody seen this before, or can anybody advise safest procedure to recover situation please? Seems he is not close to a reliable mechanic. My suggestion is to replace the cam bolt, and torque it up with some loctite asap, with no further running until then. Replace rotor and cap as needed. With luck it will only be mistimed on valves a little, probably safe until next time able to reach mechanic, or TB &WP time?
TIA
JP 83 Euro S AT 49k

Imo000

This happened to my ’85 32V and the timing belt assembly is about the same as on the 16V engines. The main problem of my belt tracing was worn out tensioner bolt bushings. This caused the tensioner roller NOT to run parallel with the rest of the timing gear and slowly pushing the t-belt off the cam gear. Try to check the tesioner arm for excessive side play. There should be very little to none. The bushings are very cheap for the 16V engines. If I recall it was around $2 each (2 required, one for each side of the arm). For the 32V engine the dealer wanted almost $100 CDN/each. 928 Int. had them for much much less!

By S3 you mean a 32V engine, right? If it is, don’t let him loosen the cam bolt. It will throw the cam timing out of spec. Have him check the tensioner bushings first.

I hope this helps!

jpitman2

This is a 32V S3, not 16v. The mistracking appears to be caused by loose cam wheel on LHS (car wise).....
jp

Imo000

In that case, make sure he tightens the cam bolt when the keyway is in the middle. This will be close enough to drive untill the cam can be indexted properly.

jpitman2

On further dismantling it turns out the nose is broken off completely, but was still located enough to keep turning and keep timing marks in range. Our local wrench has never seen this happen to an S3 before. Going under the knife next week.
jp 83 Euro S AT 49k.