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Seized intermediate shaft while driving, how fucked am I?

Right, that is one example I was thinking of. I have been known to pull covers and knock the seal out instead of risking scratching the crank using a tool trying to pry the seal out.

We also don't know if the cover was pulled and sealed with only RTV to attempt to curb oil leaks.
 
Epic2112 said:
I dunno. It's basically middle of nowhere farm land. The guy was totally decent to communicate with and everything. I just get the sense that, if it ain't Ford or Chevy, it's exotic to them. I'll see what's going on once I have it all apart in my driveway.
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After rereading your first post, I get the distinct impression that he thinks this is a pushrod engine.
 
My educated guess about what happened:

The mechanic couldn’t be bothered ordering and waiting for the 1378493 oil seal flange gasket. So he substituted it with a liquid gasket.

This means the inside of the seal flange made contact with the auxiliary shaft outer, which is why it seized and broke the cam belt.

Gaskets of the paper kind are used on engines for a very good reason.

Then the breaker bar was used on the shaft to get it to unseize. This is yellow flag number two for me.

I wish you the very best of luck and hope it’s not too expensive a repair for you.
 
hessam69 said:
My educated guess about what happened:

The mechanic couldn’t be bothered ordering and waiting for the 1378493 oil seal flange gasket. So he substituted it with a liquid gasket.

This means the inside of the seal flange made contact with the auxiliary shaft outer, which is why it seized and broke the cam belt.
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The belt snapped first, that's the reason I had it towed to the shop.

I've since confirmed with the mechanic that he pulled the cover and sealed it with RTV. So I think the belt walked off the gears because I mixed up the cam and intermediate gears. I brought it to the shop and asked him to put on new seals and a belt (I'm assuming the oil everywhere is a result of me screwing up the seals, though I have no idea how I'd've done that). Instead of just pulling the seals and putting in new ones, he pulled the cover, then reinstalled it with RTV, seizing the intermediate shaft. Then he went to install the belt, couldn't turn the intermediate shaft to get it timed right. At this point he called me and told me I had bent valves.

hessam69 said:
Then the breaker bar was used on the shaft to get it to unseize. This is yellow flag number two for me.
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Yeh. I'm extra not thrilled about this part.
 
Meatball said:
It is possible to lock the intermediate shaft up with a seized oil pump. I know that the oil pump normally shears the drive but there were sleeves available for a long time.

I have seen this failure mode exactly one time in a bazillion b230s that I've had my paws on.
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Meaning that, while not a guarantee, the overwhelming likelihood is that, if the oil pump seized. The intermediate shaft would still turn. Is that correct?
 
Epic2112 said:
The belt snapped first, that's the reason I had it towed to the shop.

I've since confirmed with the mechanic that he pulled the cover and sealed it with RTV. So I think the belt walked off the gears because I mixed up the cam and intermediate gears. I brought it to the shop and asked him to put on new seals and a belt (I'm assuming the oil everywhere is a result of me screwing up the seals, though I have no idea how I'd've done that). Instead of just pulling the seals and putting in new ones, he pulled the cover, then reinstalled it with RTV, seizing the intermediate shaft. Then he went to install the belt, couldn't turn the intermediate shaft to get it timed right. At this point he called me and told me I had bent valves.


Yeh. I'm extra not thrilled about this part.
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I didn't know the cam and the aux shaft gears were different. I remember people always selling 16V cam gears to be used as round tooth aux gears on 16v conversions. Maybe since the belt is wider it isn't a problem, IDK. I would have to do some research.

I never remove gaskets and then just reseal with RTV. In this case, it sounds like that is what caused the aux shaft to seize. The part about breaking it free with a breaker bar and attempting to run the engine is not good.

You should be able to take it all apart, clean up the aux shaft and cover, new gasket, and hopefully be good to go.
 
ZVOLV said:
I didn't know the cam and the aux shaft gears were different.
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Me neither, until now. Apparently they're only different on the roundtooth cars, in that the cam gear has the spacer built in to it. So that means you could use 16valve roundtooth gears without issue as long as you kept the original spacer.
 
Epic2112 said:
Me neither, until now. Apparently they're only different on the roundtooth cars, in that the cam gear has the spacer built in to it. So that means you could use 16valve roundtooth gears without issue as long as you kept the original spacer.
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I have never put a spacer in any of my B230F engines. I know what spacer you are talking about, but I am confused about the applications here.
 
Well, I finally got the car back home and had a few minutes to dig in. Here's what I've found so far:
  • The shop had both the cam and intermediate shafts off by a tooth or two. So no wonder it didn't run. :rolleyes:
  • The cam and intermediate gears were swapped. I'll assume this was on me, and the shop was careful to replace the gears exactly how they found them, but there are a number of things that don't inspire confidence, so who really knows...
  • The cover/seal carrier had indeed been removed and reinstalled without a gasket, using just RTV. But wait, there's more: they didn't bother to fully remove the old gasket. There were big chunks of it still attached to the block and the carrier in various spots.
  • SO MUCH RTV. All over the carrier/cover. Gumming up the insides of the crank gear they installed and just sort of all over.
And something that I didn't find, but was expecting to is any kind of evidence on the inside of the plastic timing belt cover of the belt rubbing on it. Neither on the front or back covers. No witness marks of any sort. And there are belt shreds everywhere. It catastrophically exploded. I found sherds of it everywhere. I was hoping that, if the belt did indeed walk off the gears as a result of me swapping the cam and intermediate gears, I'd see some evidence of rubbing somewhere.

So I've got it all apart and have a couple of questions:
  1. Reinstalling the cover/seal carrier: what do I need to do to make sure it seals against the pan? I'm assuming that, once all the mating surfaces are clean of old gasket/RTV, the carrier goes back on with (a reasonable amount of) RTV plus the gasket. Are there any tricks to ensure it seals well? Anyone know the torque values?

  2. Is there a trick to getting the harness out of the way when installing the cover? It was a pain to maneuver it out.

  3. Should I replace the cover/seal carrier with a new/good-used one? The shop cranked on it to get the intermediate shaft to spin after they installed it incorrectly. Should I be concerned that something got damaged and the thrust clearance is not going to be right?

  4. The cover/seal carrier is off the engine now, and the car is stored outside. We're expecting a bit of rain over the next couple of days, do I need to rush the cover back on? I sprayed everything down with a bit of WD40, which seemed like it made sense, though I'm sure a bit got into the pan, etc.

  5. How paranoid do I need to be about crud falling into the pan/engine as I'm cleaning the mating surfaces? I'm due for an oil change anyway, will it be adequate to try reasonably to keep big chunks of gasket from falling into the pan and then do an oil change, or do I need to be all white glove about it?

Thanks all! Fingers crossed that, once I've gotten it all back together, it fires right up like nothing ever happened.
 
I've seen more than one time on here where someone install the front guide-washer on the crank gear BACKWARDS. It's cupped and the cup must face forward. When it's installed wrong it always shreds the front of the belt.
TimingMarksB230crankmed.jpg
 
Epic2112 said:
Well, I finally got the car back home and had a few minutes to dig in. Here's what I've found so far:
Click to expand...

The good news is that you have figured it out. Luckily these old tractor engines are very forgiving.

Clean up both components and you will be fine. Just stuff some rags in the front so you don't drop chunks down there. I would probably do an oil change because you don't know what they dropped down in the pan.

Just be careful not to roll the lip of the crank and aux seals. If you install that cover with the seals installed, the lip could easily roll and you will have to do it all over.
 
A trick I like to do with the cam and aux seals is to remove the dowel pin and then use a strut gland nut with the pulley bolt and washer to slowly push the seal in evenly. You could do something similar with the crank, provided you find the right size drift/washer.
 
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