420A timing and valves?

[indians32]

first off 99 eclipse 420A motor if you couldnt figure that out from the title. my water pump siezed and it frayed the t-belt. i was taking it home from school where i was going to replace them both, but ran out of time and since i only live 5 mins away i figured i could make it home. well the timng belt was really frayed since it was rubbing against the non moving water pump and it snappped, but only half of it snapped, like say it was 2 inches wide, the tear only went through 1 inch. after i parked i turned the car off and for some reason tried to start it again and it wouldnt start, i checked the belt and it had snapped the rest of the way. i know it didnt happen while driveing since the car would have shut off wouldnt it? i got into it today and took off the t belt and already replaced the water pump. is there any easy way to check for bent valves and to see if the car is out of time? if so how would i put it back into time? i dont plan on replacing valves and i really dont wanna rip off the head to check becuase if they are then i am going to wind up replaceing them and thats jsut going to piss me off since i would rather jsut sell it and take the loss since i have another car anyway.

 

[Viper588]

Same thing happened to mine =( damn water pumps ...If the timing belt had snapped while driving, the car would have shut off, so if you turned it off with the key and found it broken after you tried to start back up it must have snapped trying to start...in order to see if the timing is still correct, there is one notch on each cam gear... line them up so that both notches are on the "inside" of the engine...kinda weird to explain but the two notches will be as close to each other as possible, you can check if they are aligned by stretching a piece of string from the bolt in the center of each cam gear and checking if it passes over the notches....once those are aligned the crank gear has an arrow on it and the block has an arrow on it, the arrows must be aligned and pointing at each other...if you find that either of these timing marks are not aligned you need to remove the t-belt to adjust them...as for checking the valves without removing the head im not sure if there is any way but i dont think there is....good luck

 

[Defiant]

420A motors are non-interference.

 

[Mitsu RacerX]

Defiant is right just put it back together and start it up(if your timing is right). My t-belt snapped at 80mph and all I did was get Mitsu to replace the belt and set time car ran fine after that..

 

[BogusSVO]

I have seen a few 420a heads bend valves, but not anywhere near as many as the 4G63. so you may have a good chace of not bending the valves.

 

[Locke]

The 420a IS an interference motor, though with mild factory camshafts and valve pockets in the pistons, you can often jump a great deal of time without bending valves.

The simplest test that could cause suspicion of bent valves would be a compression test. Bent valves seldom seat fully and can cause low compression, and will tend to cause the compression gauge to fluctuate wildly while building pressure. If the engine runs and is timed correctly, a jumping vacuum reading would be indicative of poorly sealing valves (bent) as well.

 

[matt98eclipse]

I have had 2 incidences were the timing belts snapped on a 420a and both times atleast 2 valves would be bent. Like Locke said above do a compression test first and see what happens. If you have low compression in a cylinder take off the valve cover "wiggle" all 4 of the little roller rockers on on that cylinder thats low and that will tell you witch valves are bent. This is what works great for me to find out if you have a bent valves.