Timing Belt Broke!

[JmasterC]

My timing belt broke yesterday and I don't know what to do . I brought it to a mechanic and he couldn't find any information on my car, it's a really small town! I need to know what to do now, if I need a new engine or can just replace the belt? What are the chances of the engine being okay, 1 in 10 or somewhere around 9 in 10? I'm a first year college student so money is a big factor here! Any input would greatly be appreciated! If my profile isn't completed, I drive a '99 Mitsubishi Eclipse N/T with a 2.0 liter engine.

 

[IslandTSI]

Well i am not to fermiliar with the 420 but I can give some advice. No you cannot just replace the belt. You most likely bent a few valves and more or less fubared your valvetrain.

The head need to be taken off and disasembled. While it is off you can tell if the valves did any damage to the pistons. if you are lucky they dididnt and all you need is new valvetrain and maybe a little machine work on the head.

You might need to rebuild the whole longblock but you wont know until you pull it apart. The head is 99% screwed I would say. The pistons etc are iffy.

 

[hereitcomes]

This is not necessarily true. Sometimes you can get away with a clean break on a belt, resulting in no damage. I would start by removing the valve cover, and inspecting the rocker arms and cam lobes for either scoreing, or they will be loose if a valve has broken or is mangled. The absolutely best thing to do to be safe with the car is remove the head, and all your answers will be in plain sight.
Did you hear any foul noises when the belt broke engine wise? Like a bunch of tearing metal and poping? If you didnt, you can look on the bright side of things. Good luck dude!

 

[luv2rallye]

What are the chances of the engine being okay, 1 in 10 or somewhere around 9 in 10?

About 1 in 10 if idling (0 in 10 if you were driving when it broke).

 

[dnbmovement]

well i was driving my car on i-95 when my belt slipped. I lost power and the car shut off. I pulled over and tried to start it like 5 times causing my valves to bend. I've heard that u can get away without bending valves if u didnt try to start the motor after the belt slip or breakage. I hadda spend like 500$ in a head job

 

[speedy13]

This is also not neccesarily true. If your valves are in the closed position, and the timing belt snapped, you can crank it till eternity, and you won't bend valves. This is not very likely, but it does happen. My timing belt snapped a few months ago on my talon and I did not bend any valves. I got extremely lucky. I was coming to a red light, car was about 1500 rpm droping to idle, or as close to idle as I can get it . On my galant I wasn't so lucky though, the car was going about 20 mph in second, pop noise, and timing belt went bye bye. bent ALL the exhaust valves. Most likely your head will be fine, it's just the valves that suffer. but since you already got it out you might wanna get it checked out. I'm just slappin on a used 2g head on the gvr4 my buddy had laying around. I'm doing this because the car is a DD and it's never gonna see any kind of serious moddin. You might wanna take it to a shop that is qualified in doing head jobs. If they can do a head job on a neon, they can do it on your 2gnt. Since you are not doing the work yourself, it can get expensive. Their is a small chance you damaged your pistons, but like formentioned, you wont know till you pull the head. I say pull the head, send it to a machine shop, have them replace the valves that bent and whatever is needed, slap that puppy on along with all the necesary parts, and go on with life. Sorry to hear it bro, where all in the same boat. Cars break, if they didn'y I wouldn't have a job.. Good luck with it.

 

[NOMIEZVR4]

getting back to the original post...
there is a chance you bent your valves and you wont know until you take the head off...if your mechanic has no idea what to do than well he is def. not the best person to take it too..
but if he is your only hope than i would buy a hayness manual and give it to him. he should be able to figure it out

 

[BOBS90TURBO]

I had a t belt break a few years ago with no bent valves, It can happen

 

[95gs200k]

the 420 a chrysler motor is a very stout motor for an na car but i can tell you this 20 bucks says you bent 4 valves minimum. i have worked on many of these motors in talons, eclipses, neons, avengers, etc and to be perfectly honest most of the time there are some valves that are fine and some that are bad. In my experience they always need a few valves and guides replaced. a good idea is find a junkyard head and swap the whole assymbly over. good luck man

 

[chris712vt]

Sorry to bring this thread back to life but I had a very weird experience tonight and I'm fearing a timing belt issue.

I was driving back to college tonight, a 260 mile drive, all highway. literally 2 miles away from my apartment, my car just shuts off. i'm cruising at 65 and it just dies. i coast off the side of the road. hesitating, i start it up again. had no problem starting, but as soon as i went in gear and accelerated it had no power and died moments later. at this point i waited for a flatbed. and when the guy showed up, i tried to start it up one more time, it started, chugged, and died. now it will not start and it will not turn over.

i had gas, i had oil, i have plenty of battery power.... what could be going on?? this happened at 11pm, so it's too dark to start looking around, but i'm very scared i broke the timing belt. does this sound like a normal symptom of a timing belt break? there were no snaps or grinding that i heard... just the motor dying.

 

[elfroggo]

Timing belt is right under a cover, just take off a couple screws and check

 

[shiner6n]

you might have skipped a few teeth but not broke the belt if the belt would have snapped you wouldn't start it up

 

[DSM_dreams]

yah its possible it jumped a few teeth.. it might still run but not very smooth or powerfully... ithe timing belt did not break because if it did you would not of been able to start the car

 

[90mitsu]

before you pull your head to check the valves a simple test can be done remove your spark plugs back off all the cam bolts they need to be loose so all the valves are seated the you can put compressed air in the cylinder all you need is a compression set with the long rubber hose that will thread into your spark plug holes and a shut off valve so you can put little or lots of air, but tomuch will turn the engine over dont do that if possible, if you dont hear air rushing in the exhaust or intake your good if you do then thats bad. i have done this more than once alot more than once but its cheaper than pulling your head and any one can do it. be shure to use tourqe specs for those cams