Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

[InvisiBill]

I got to see my AAA tow truck buddy again last night... Almost home, I got off the expressway. Stopped at the end of the exit ramp and turned toward my house. As I was accelerating, there was a loud noise and the truck started running funny. There was a little bit of smoke coming out from under the hood as I coasted off the road.

I got out, and the serpentine belt was shredded and wrapped around the fan. I also noticed a little dribble of oil (I think) in the snow between my tire tracks (looked like it dribbled out of a straw). I was thinking that maybe the snapped belt nicked one of the oil cooler lines or something. I had it towed to my parents' house (garage and tools are there) and got a new belt for it this morning. It wasn't sitting quite level, but the oil level looked good on the dipstick.

With the new belt on, the truck ran like the plug wires were on in the wrong order - horrible vibration shaking the whole truck and lots of white smoke out the exhaust. There's now a puddle of oil under the truck. It's not a huge puddle like the oil pan fell off, but it's definitely more than just dribbling out of a straw.

I have next to no knowledge of engine internals, but the first thing that came to mind was that the sudden change in load due to the belt breaking caused something inside the engine to snap. A rod or crank or something else really bad... Anyone got any thoughts on what the problem might be? Am I remembering correctly that you need to pull the diff to take the oil pan off?

 

[MikeRenz]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

the only thing snapping a belt could do is overheat your motor from not driving the water pump. Other than that, all you lose is power steering, charge from your alternator, and a/c compression.

We don't have timing belts that break like hondas...and we don't have interference motors...so even if you do break a timing chain you most likely won't hurt much/any.

 

[R&C_RallySyTy]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

the only thing snapping a belt could do is overheat your motor from not driving the water pump. Other than that, all you lose is power steering, charge from your alternator, and a/c compression.

We don't have timing belts that break like hondas...and we don't have interference motors...so even if you do break a timing chain you most likely won't hurt much/any.

:tup:

 

[SY2455]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

I would check all of your oil lines to the oil filter and turbo. Is the oil puddle closer to the driver side? If so than look at the lines where they come out near the PS pump. As for the plug wires If the belt was really flying around in there I would inspect the two for the front cylinders. I never heard of just the belt causing internal engine damage unless it had time to get HOT. But I have heard of the damage that may result from a bad water pump or fan. I did a search for it, but couldn't find it right away. You will know when you find it because of the pictures that show holes though the hood.

Here is the link. In this case the fan hub came off the pump. Depending on how bad the belt wrapped around the fan, I would look at replacing the pump and fan clutch.

http://www.syty.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20413&highlight=died

 

[InvisiBill]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

I'm about to push it into the garage to take a closer look.

I think my thermostat's been sticking open, as it takes forever to warm up. It's got a 160 in it, but I don't remember it ever taking this long to heat up. I got a new stat to put in a couple weeks ago, but haven't gotten around to it.

The truck was driving perfectly fine for the 20ish miles I drove it home. It only had problems after I got off the expressway, and I pulled over as soon as it happened. The dash temp gauge was at its normal ~140. The needle used to be way off (as in it never got over 1/4 even with the stock 195 stat), so I pulled it off and recalibrated it to match DM a while back. I'm pretty sure it didn't overheat, especially enough to cause major engine problems.

If we look at it from the other end, is it possible for a broken timing chain to do something that would cause the belt to break? I've had accessories seize up before, which burns through the belt from sliding over the pulley rather than spinning. But it seems like since the engine powers the belt, that an engine problem would either keep on turning the belt like normal, or it wouldn't. If the crank pulley somehow stopped, it would just stop turning the belt and accessories.

The oil seems to be coming off my "skid plate", not really near the lines up front. Looking at them from above while putting the new belt on, I didn't notice any damaged lines upon quick inspection either.

I'll report back once we push it into the garage and I get a better look at it...

 

[SY2455]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

If we look at it from the other end, is it possible for a broken timing chain to do something that would cause the belt to break? I've had accessories seize up before, which burns through the belt from sliding over the pulley rather than spinning. But it seems like since the engine powers the belt, that an engine problem would either keep on turning the belt like normal, or it wouldn't. If the crank pulley somehow stopped, it would just stop turning the belt and accessories.

The oil seems to be coming off my "skid plate", not really near the lines up front. Looking at them from above while putting the new belt on, I didn't notice any damaged lines upon quick inspection either.

I'll report back once we push it into the garage and I get a better look at it...

Being the belt is off now it is really easy to check the other accessories, try spinning them. If the crank pulley spins easy then you have bigger problems.

 

[MikeRenz]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

fyi...the crank pulley shouldn't be EASY to spin. It's a 2 hander for sure.

 

[kentuc]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

Just for fun, check the inside of the distributor cap for moisture.

 

[warmpancakes]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

My belt took out a power steering pump by doing what dave described above

 

[InvisiBill]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

I'm pretty sure that doesn't belong there. The other pictures (http://syclone.invisibill.net/carnage/engine/) didn't turn out so great (camera phone while holding a flashlight), but there's a matching one on the other side too. Guess I could've saved the $80 I spent this morning on the belt and propshaft U-joint...

So yeah, do I need to pull the diff to get the oil pan out? I thought I remembered reading that somewhere, but I've obviously never done this before.

 

[MikeRenz]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

option a: pull diff
option b: pull engine


both take time. Personally i'd rather just pull the motor...that way if it needs rebuilt you already have it out and don't have to mess with the diff.

 

[Beavis]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

Not to rain on your allready shitty day, but maybe it's time to pull it and rebiuld it from the ground up. If I remember right you got some miles on it, and if it's got white smoke blowing out the exhaust you might have popped a head gasket or done even more damage.
:2cents:

 

[warmpancakes]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

is that a hole in the pan?

 

[SY2455]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

Yes you do need to remove the front diff (per the service manual). In the picture is that a hole in the oil pan?

 

[InvisiBill]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

Yup, holes in each side of the pan with chocolate milk running out. It looks like it got smashed out from the inside. I'm picturing the main cap getting pushed straight down into the pan and smashing out the sides (though I don't know how the sizes compare, so that may not even be possible). I was just hoping to pull the pan off to get some idea what happened in there.

I've been having crud on my #4 plug for a while, and it does have over 200k now (not sure exactly, the odometer is on the list of broken parts). At this point I'm figuring on a full rebuild, and just hoping that there's no damage to the major parts that would be reused.

 

[warmpancakes]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

Yup, holes in each side of the pan with chocolate milk running out. It looks like it got smashed out from the inside. I'm picturing the main cap getting pushed straight down into the pan and smashing out the sides (though I don't know how the sizes compare, so that may not even be possible). I was just hoping to pull the pan off to get some idea what happened in there.

I've been having crud on my #4 plug for a while, and it does have over 200k now (not sure exactly, the odometer is on the list of broken parts). At this point I'm figuring on a full rebuild, and just hoping that there's no damage to the major parts that would be reused.

Didnt i send you the cluster repair parts?

 

[MikeRenz]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

The important steps are:

• Unbolt the motor mounts, and raise the engine.
• Loosen the steering linkage and push forward
• Remove the (4) diff bolts, and drive shaft, and push it forward.

i'd add "unbolt tranny mount" also

 

[InvisiBill]

Re: Could breaking the belt screw up my engine?

Thanks for the tips, Dave and Mike. I should probably do that, but I really have no motivation right now. I've had so much trouble with it lately, that I just want it to go away for a bit. I'm still dealing with the two accidents from December 2007 even...

Didnt i send you the cluster repair parts?

Yup, and it went back to being broken shortly after fixing it. Gotta get back in there sometime and find out what the root of the problem is.