jlturpin

I know the BS belt tensioner calls for the tensioner to be tensioned by turning the tensioner to the right. Not sure if this would cause the failure if no done. That belt was destroyed in a hurry. You should be able to find the cause easily once you are able to get in there. Mount your old belt up an spin the engine by hand to see if you can find anything making contact.

I also bought a used engine one time where the PO or their mechanic put a washer behind the BS tensioner and it caused a similar issue if I recall correctly.

Hope you are able to determine the cause of your failure.

Mark-87-951

I'm not following you. I tensioned it using Arnworx's tool. It seemed loose which is how it felt last time I did it and that's how it's supposed to seem from what I've read. No whine from the belts that I could detect and the car ran smooth.

schip43

On my 944 N/A I had a brand new roller fail. I was driving the I heard a pop but it was stilling running fine. Couriousity get the better of me and I pulled the cover the balance shaft belt was just laying inside the cover!
On tear down I discovered that the balance shaft roller had separated ie the rubber was no longer bounded to the steel. I got the part from one of the usually vendors, replaced the roller and it was all good.
On our DOHC 16 valve Woo, the roller totaly disentagrated! rubber and ball bearings everywhere! The belt was still intact! Point being it could have been a roller failure.

Van

Amazing pictures. I'm agreeing - looks like like something mechanical (or a foreign object) caused the balance shaft belt to shred which then got tangled up with the timing belt. Hopefully you find an obvious source for the problem so you can rectify it.

Tom M'Guinn

On the balance shaft belt, it's possible to tension it to the correct tightness by turning the accentric in either direction. However, if you don't turn it in the correct direction, the b/s belt moves out dangerously close (and sometimes can contact) the timing belt cover down in the lower corner where the adjuster is. I'd take a look at that adjuster now and see if it was tensioned in the right direction and/or if it is too close to the cover. Your looks like something with more direct interference/contact, but worth checking... I'd also spin the rollers by hand to see if any are frozen for some reason... And spin the balance shafts themselves to make sure both of them spin freely, if you took the end bearings off for any reason, you need to be careful that they don't bind up when you reinstall the end bearings.

Jeff N.

Ouch! Sure looks like something backed out and hit the belt. Be curious to see what happened.

jlturpin

What I was saying was turning the ecentric tensioner to the right or clockwise if memory is correct.

Like I said, mount your old BS belt and rotate engine by hand. That should answer the question pretty quickly as to the cause of the failure. Hope this helps.

Mark-87-951

Tensioners were not loose for either belt and all rollers and such rotated fine. I torqued the balance shaft tensioner to the right. I didnt find anything other than the remnants of the BS belt that had shredded off. Link to latest pics:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/1422638...7626807851620/

Is it possible the BS belt was defective? The car was fine around town Sunday, then Monday 20 miles, mostly highway to work and then back before things started to go a few blocks from home and then it died once in the garage. Before getting back on the road Sunday I had run it in the garage the previous weekend for a bit before finding the coolant leak was from the fitting at the front of the head gasket, it ran fine then.

I should have the head off tomorrow night and see how bad it is.

schip43

Look at the belt and see if any coolant got on it. If it did that could have destroyed the belt.

Mark-87-951

It didn't look like it but I'll check again.

Chris White

I am not certain it was the cause….but the threaded stud that your cam belt tensioner is mounted on sticks out way too far. A loose balance shaft belt may have touched that stud and eventually caused it to fail, the crap coming off the balance belt got sucked into the cam belt and caused it to ‘derail’ over the water pump….

Mark-87-951

Thanks Chris, I hadn't notice that stud being so far out till you mentioned it. That looks to be the most likely cause unless coolant turns up on the BS belt but I think that's unlikely as the timing belt was dry. I'll definitely be trying to turn that stud deeper into the block before running the engine again.

When I have the head off I'll post pics of that for everyone to input on.

Mark-87-951

I might as well get this answer now since I'll have to deal with it eventually.

This is the second time I've had the head off, original studs still. I had good compression numbers within the last 6 months or so. Can I still use these studs or is that something else I need to replace. Also, I used a wide fire head gasket last time. Is there anything better to go with now?

Mark-87-951

Well, I see the head stud thing is all over the place after searching the forum. I guess I'll just see how they look after surveying the other damage this weekend.

C ANDERSON

Check the timing belt tension roller to see if it was turned the correct direction the lip goes to the rear. doesn't sound like what happened but I bought a car that the belt came off and took out the balance belt a day after belt and rollers were changed thought at first was not tensioned correct or a failed roller , had lots of belt matterial in the rollers. luckily noticed noticed when head was back on and installing belt installing tensioner was to easy then realized the roller was reversed .

Clifton