overheated now won't start

[nye359]

Hello gentlemen. I have a buddy with a '97 integra that overheated on him. He pulled off the highway, filled it with coolant and I believe 2 or 3 quarts of oil. I went to go get him and had him turn the engine over so I could hear it. It sounded like it has no compression...water was coming out of the radiator and the front of the engine, i believe the water pump. I towed the car home and I took the valve cover off and there is slack in the belt between the cam gears(over half an inch) and the oil is burnt to a crisp. The car got so hot that it melted the plastic timing cover between the belt and the head. I'm a very experienced heavy diesel mechanic, but don't work on cars. I am nearly 100% certain he blew the engine but wanted to be able to tell him that some integra guys agreed with me. He doesn't want to believe he killed it. What do you guys think? Is she done for?

 

[NemesisCBR]

Sounds like it but some things can only be certain by checking when taking it apart which is essentially the head and block, checking for warpage. Compression test and leak down are in order. You can do a leak down and depending on results of that you may not need to bother with the comp test but a comp test could be vice versa. Cus it sounds like the comp is shot to s*** for not starting. Maybe the plugs got cooked.

 

[nye359]

That was my next step. Was gonna pull the plugs, see what they look like, do a compression test. Because of the slack in the belt, do you think it jumped timing or anything? Or is that slack between the cams normal?

 

[NemesisCBR]

That sounds like too much slack but dont take my word for it. Ive not had to deal with timing belt maintenance personally. Id be curious to find out if the overheat lead to a timing belt slip.

 

[nye359]

It might have because the back of the cover melted and, from what I can see before removing the cover, it is laying all over the one cam gear and the pulleys for the belt. The belt didn't slip off because it all still turns when you crank it, but maybe some of the cover got between the belt and a pulley and made it jump? It just sounds like it has little to no compression and doesn't even try to start. I know the water pump is turning because it will pump out water when you turn the engine over, but I don't know if there is tons of slack in the bearing yet. I won't have time to pull it apart until tonight and when i find out what happened I'll let you know if it jumped timing or not. With all the slack in the belt between the gears, it looks like the forward gear mark is straight up while the rear gear mark is cocked to the rear a little...when we turned it over that night, it sounded like it was pushing air out the intake when it was turning. That's why I originally suspected that it jumped timing. It doesn't sound like that this morning tho..

 

[NemesisCBR]

Do post up what you find. I am curious.

 

[nye359]

I will. Thanks for the input NemesisCBR. I'll post what I find out in a day or so...and some pictures if i can. How do I post a reply to you personally, or can I?

 

[NemesisCBR]

You can send a pm by clicking on user name. A drop down menu should give you the option. Replying here will be the same and in the long run may benefit someone trouble shooting a problem.

 

[nye359]

Ok, thanks buddy. I'll let you know what I find out.

 

[zerialz]

If there is that much play in the timing belt I would think it's done for seeing as how the engine is an interference engine. If you tried to crank it out of mechanical time you probably have valve damage.

 

[sps21112]

Line up your timing marks. And i second the loss of compression sounds like bent valves. even so if he over heated the engine that bad i would either rebuild or replace. What engine is it? Might be cheaper to replace with a jdm counterpart. Like if its an ls i would snag a jdm b20 less than 800 bucks.