Please help, timing belt issues / internal engine damage

Hatfield · **Joined:** Fri May 10, 2013 9:54 am **Posts:** 22

audiboy86 wrote:

Let us know what it is and if your not willing to sink the cash in it that it will take to repair it let us on the board know also I am sure one of us will be willing to take it off your hands or help part it out to make some of your cash back. And that $500 offer from the dealer is laughable the long block is worth at least 3 times that used. And original body panels bring a premium off the KJs since there are so few sitting in wrecking yards.

Thanks audiboy. Once I hear back on the extent of the damage I'll go from there. I'm working against the clock though as I either have to have my jeep fixed, or find a new car. I really don't want to throw more money into a rental on top of having a massive repair charge looming over my head.

I would absolutely be willing to let it go at this point. If it is just timing belt, I will have that replaced, if it is timing and water pump, I will replace that as well. Anything further than that i would sell it as is, which sucks for me because I have sunk nearly $3k alone in it within the past 8 months with new front tires, 4 new injectors and replacement turbo pump.

If it is internal engine damage this go around, I will have shelled out over $600 just to make that determination. These cars belong in the hands of people who know how to work on them, that disqualifies amatuer noobs like myself.

Hexus · **Posted:** Tue May 14, 2013 3:07 pm

The real crap sandwich at this point is that the $900 worth of parts you're going to need to fix it if it is out of timing translates to about $6000 of vehicle value.

Liberty CRD with Good Engine = ~$9500 - $12000

Liberty CRD with Shot Engine = ~$3500 - $5000

Sir Sam · **Posted:** Tue May 14, 2013 4:46 pm

Crap I was just in Mobile. Good luck man, post back what you find out.

Hatfield · **Joined:** Fri May 10, 2013 9:54 am **Posts:** 22

Ha, it's a darn shame you didn't see me driving my crd, if so I may have blown your mind as I have that exact same Flying Spaghetti Monster decal on the back of my jeep.

I too have been touched by His Noodily Appendage

Ramen

Sir Sam · **Posted:** Tue May 14, 2013 7:29 pm

Hatfield wrote:

Ha, it's a darn shame you didn't see me driving my crd, if so I may have blown your mind as I have that exact same Flying Spaghetti Monster decal on the back of my jeep.

I too have been touched by His Noodily Appendage

Ramen

Ya but it sounds he might have touched your CRD with "the bad touch"

MedicPatriot · **Posted:** Tue May 14, 2013 9:24 pm

I feel ya man. I just had a timing belt and rocker job. I did not have valve damage. Still, it was not cheap to drop a few thousand on this car. I totally blame it on myself for letting that water pump issue go though...

Anyways, if you have engine damage from it being out of time it most likely is the rockers. Yeah they are expensive. OTOH it won't be as expensive as a fried engine you have to replace.

geordi · **Posted:** Wed May 15, 2013 2:28 am

Sorry that it is the timing, that sucks a bit. However, your mechanic is proving that he hasn't ever seen any of these before either. Warranties and insisting on dealer-or-mopar parts (especially for these) is a dead giveaway.

Tell your mechanic you aren't worried about the parts warranty - You will provide whatever parts are required, but you want a warranty from him IN WRITING that he agrees to replace anything that is damaged because of bad installation. He shouldn't have a problem with this, and specifically you want this because his failure to properly set the timing is the main place he can screw up. The torque on the tensioner bolt IS CRITICAL AND ONLY *****TWENTY EIGHT POUNDS***** The mechanic screwing this up cost me 2 sets of rockers, because the dumbarse didn't read the manual that I GAVE HIM, and I was too dumb at the time to know I was being ripped off for the cost of the rockers. None of the parts that are suggested from here will fail within the part warranty period, I can guarantee that. Why? Because these are THE SAME PARTS - they are just being sourced directly and not with Mopar's upcharge-for-the-fun-of-it.

As I said before - the belt is about $75 on Amazon, this is the GENUINE Gates brand belt, the EXACT SAME BELT that you get from Mopar for $200. Let him 'not warranty' the belt. You don't need to care. You aren't asking for a PARTS warranty, you want his LABOR to be quality. The belt will be good for 100k miles easily.

The rockers are sourced directly from The VM Specialist (google, look for the .co.uk address) or from IDparts.com which should have the same ones in stock now. $340 or less, and GENUINE VM Motori parts. Ain't no knock-off chinese crap happening here.

Let me know if you want me to talk him through any of the teardown or jump in on this, doing the rockers sucks as a job, but it is the designed failure point for a broken timing belt. There shouldn't be any other damage. DO NOT LET HIM TAKE THE HEAD OFF.

Firstly, that is a big increase in the cost for you on labor... And the head can be tested IN PLACE with a simple blowgun and rubber tip into the injector hole. If it holds pressure (lock the crankshaft with a wrench first) on each cylinder - the valves are fine.

Hatfield · **Joined:** Fri May 10, 2013 9:54 am **Posts:** 22

Well the nightmare continues. Mechanic got the timing belt put on last Friday, cranked it right up and it seemed to be running fine for a few minutes until he heard a loud noise. No telling what happened, he currently thinks it's the #3 injector, but that was replaced exactly a year ago yesterday.

I am at a loss as to what to do. This will now be the 4th time my Jeep has been in the shop for close to a month or longer. The mechanic acts like he's an arrogant knowitall and has refused my offers at providing him with additional resources that could be of use to him. I realize this is his profession and I am in no position to tell him how to do his job, but he already expressed his unfamiliarity with my engine, why wouldn't you want to utilize any additional resources available. I was very delicate and professional when I mentioned this site, the service manual and the green diesel tutorial on changing the timing belt. Before I could even finish the sentence, he already cut me off and said he had it under control. Sure you do guy.

So here I sit, twittling my thumbs and trying to work out arrangements for a rental car for the rest of this week. And as luck would have it, the injector he is saying is bad, was replaced last year, May 19, 2012, a day after a 1 year warranty would have passed. (if there is in fact a 1 year warranty on a mopar injector, I'm not sure)

If it is the injector, could that have been damaged as a result of him improperly installing the timing belt?

kjjet · **Posted:** Mon May 20, 2013 3:12 pm

Its not likely to be a injector. Most likely Rockers!!

Hatfield · **Joined:** Fri May 10, 2013 9:54 am **Posts:** 22

kjjet wrote:

Its not likely to be a injector. Most likely Rockers!!

Thanks for the response.

I'm mostly clueless when it comes to my crd's engine, but I'm finding it difficult to believe it is an injector issue, especially after having all 4 of them replaced a year ago. It does seem likely, that it is the rockers as Geordi mentioned he had the same thing happen to him when his mechanic refused to listen during his timing belt failure.

I'm done dealing with it today and about to head to the bar for happy hour to drink my misery away. I will call him in the morning to see if he has narrowed down the issue.

If the rockers have failed, is there any way at all I can prove it was done when my jeep died on me 3 weeks ago, or if this was perhaps an error on behalf of the mechanic for not adjusting the timing belt properly? I don't want to start pointing fingers, but for a mechanic who mentioned he has never worked on my engine, he hasn't been very open to alternative resources that would have clearly instructed him every step of the way. I really don't like being a lab rat, but that's how I feel with my engine in his hands at the moment.

LMWatBullRun · **Posted:** Mon May 20, 2013 5:37 pm

Find a new mechanic.

This one will hurt you.

Hatfield · **Joined:** Fri May 10, 2013 9:54 am **Posts:** 22

LMWatBullRun wrote:

Find a new mechanic.

This one will hurt you.

You are likely right, but I truly have no place else to go. I have always had the dealership do all the work on my liberty and the few other diesel shops we have in town don't want to touch the thing. I've got the only guy that I could find besides the dealership working on it now.

I'm out $200 in towing fees alone, $125 diagnostic fee at the chrysler dealership, $300 for car rental, $80 for timing belt and about $500 in labor thus far and it appears I also now have some internal engine damage, costing me countless more $$$. I am hemorrhaging money on this thing that I don't have. After this repair, I'm looking at over $4k I've spent on my jeep in the past year.

LMWatBullRun · **Posted:** Mon May 20, 2013 7:57 pm

Repairing engine problems is easy, all that takes is instructions, tools and willingness to do it. The hard part is diagnosis, and that you can get a lot of help with here. If I were in your shoes and money was the problem, I would do the work myself or see whether I could get Sir Sam or Geordi to come and take a look at it. that would be cheaper in the long run than letting somebody whose ego is getting in the way of the solution learn on your hundred dollar bills.

Back when really good mechanics made $20 an hour, I decided that was too much money to spend, and that I would be better off learning how to teach myself how to do this sort of work. There has been nothing in the intervening 40 years to make me think I was wrong, and barring Alzheimers it is never too late to learn. It's your life, live it as you wish!

I wish you well.

LMWatBullRun · **Posted:** Mon May 20, 2013 7:59 pm

Hatfield wrote:

LMWatBullRun wrote:

Find a new mechanic.

This one will hurt you.

You are likely right, but I truly have no place else to go. I have always had the dealership do all the work on my liberty and the few other diesel shops we have in town don't want to touch the thing. I've got the only guy that I could find besides the dealership working on it now.

I'm out $200 in towing fees alone, $125 diagnostic fee at the chrysler dealership, $300 for car rental, $80 for timing belt and about $500 in labor thus far and it appears I also now have some internal engine damage, costing me countless more $$$. I am hemorrhaging money on this thing that I don't have. After this repair, I'm looking at over $4k I've spent on my jeep in the past year.

The other option you have is to sell it as-is, or part it out.

DOC4444 · **Posted:** Tue May 21, 2013 12:02 am

If it was "running fine" immediately after he changed the timing belt, then there was a "loud noise" and it stopped, most likely the timing was off (presumably his fault, one way or the other) and the pistons hit the valves. You should be able to put a mini video inspection camera in the oil filler hole to view some of the rockers

If he does not make good on it, I would consider small claims court.

So Sorry.

DOC

kjjet · **Posted:** Tue May 21, 2013 11:37 am

If it jumped time and broke the rockers its easy to determine. Do a Suck and Blow Check! Remove the intake hose where it attaches to the intake. Start the engine, If there is popping and blowing from the intake? There are broken rockers!! Sucking only? = fuel related problem.

The injectors are very good in the CRD, any problems you have are most often due to dirt. I good injector cleaner or at worse remove and have a shop clean them. Replacement is rarely needed.

geordi · **Posted:** Tue May 21, 2013 1:39 pm

The mechanic has now broken your rockers, if they weren't already broken before.

This can only happen if he is a BLITHERING IDIOT and didn't bother to use the proper tools, and the system wound up a tooth out of position before starting the engine. IT WILL IDLE AND DRIVE with the timing done wrong... BUT (as you and I both have discovered) it will fail and smash the rockers either on the test drive or just before, as soon as the engine leaves idle. The timing changes or the belt flexes, or the tensioner slips from the improper assembly... and here we are.

The rockers are toast. You are well within your rights to demand he make good on this by buying you the replacement rockers, but I would personally not expect him to do this honorably. Pay him with a credit card, DO NOT USE CASH OR A CHECK, get your Jeep back from him, and dispute the charge with Visa. You will get your money back!

I did exactly this with a dealer that was jerking me around when my transfer case broke and ruined my transmission. They insisted that the transfer case was just fine and couldn't have caused the failures. I paid them over $500 in "diagnostic fees" for them to wait 3 days and tell me "your transmission is failed and needs to be replaced" when I had TOLD THEM THAT, from the smoke and burning coming from the transmission case when I brought it in. I got my Jeep back, Visa got me my money back. I will happily provide you a receipt for the actual repair that you can use as evidence for Visa, I am that confident in what has happened.

I just hope the gorilla hasn't over-torqued that weak tensioner bolt and ruined the aluminum-and-helicoil threading that holds it in. That is how the mechanic ruined my engine and timing, and didn't want to admit that it was HIS mistake that caused it because he couldn't be arsed to read the papers that I gave him either. Just like your mechanic.

Hatfield · **Joined:** Fri May 10, 2013 9:54 am **Posts:** 22

Mechanic is saying he is certain it is the #3 fuel injector leaking. This was replaced last year on May 19. After having the 2&3 injector replaced, my jeep starting having the exact same issues 2 weeks later. I then had it towed back into the dealership who diagnosed the issue as the #1 and 4 injector, which was replaced by the dealer at no charge to me. The #3 injector is literally 2 days out of warranty, so it is likely doubtful the dealership would do anything about it. If they did, I have to have it towed to the Chrysler dealership, about 60 miles or $150, and then have them perform their diagnosis to determine if it is in fact the injector. If they determine it's not the injector then I'm on the hook who know's how much more $$$.

All I want right now is to get the freakin thing running so I can drive it into a dealership and trade it in. If I can get $5K for it at this point, I would be thrilled.

audiboy86 · **Posted:** Tue May 21, 2013 2:02 pm

Geordi do you still have either of your CRD blocks with the rod hole? And i agree sounds like you are down a set of rockers and it is time to get your jeep out of there. If he will not replace the rockers on his dime find a lawyer have him give the guy a call and I bet he will replace them.

geordi · **Posted:** Tue May 21, 2013 2:15 pm

I don't have either wrecked block. #1 was scrapped, #2 is still installed in the jeep, and living with the new victim, waiting for a rebuild.

The mechanic can be "certain" that the sun will rise in the West tomorrow, but that doesn't make it true. Injector failures DO NOT MAKE A MECHANICAL NOISE. Period.

Either the timing was done wrong and the top end is broken (rockers) or the bottom end was deteriorating and the engine is about to have a cataclysmic hole in it somewhere. THAT is the result of mechanical noises. In your case, I don't suspect the bottom end. I had two bottom end failures, and both happened with LOTS of bad noises and extended (several minutes / miles) of very rough running or unhappy idling.

Anything quick that stops the engine (especially right after a timing job) is 99% involving the timing components.
I will be driving back to Savannah from South Florida tomorrow, if you want to discuss a side trip for later in the week.

Please help, timing belt issues / internal engine damage

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