HELP! - 306 DW8 Possible Camshaft Seizure?

[jamesgmg]

Hello!

I'm hoping for some advice on the following situation.

In April 2012 I took my 306 1.9D DW8 (79,800 miles) to a diesel specialist to diagnose poor running. They subsequently removed and re-shimmed the camshaft which fixed the miss-fire. On getting the car home however I immediately noticed the following glaring problems.

• Fuel filter lid clip not fastened resulting in a substantial amount of air entering the fuel system.
• Plastic engine cover missing, only returned after many phone calls.
• Air intake hose clip was not secured.
• Fuel lines not replaced in their clips.

On alerting the garage, I was told the mechanic that worked on my car was new and that this wasn't the first time, but he would be spoken to.

In July 2012, on it's first long run since the work (now 81,000 miles), the car suffered complete engine failure (this was right in the middle of our honeymoon in cornwall!). On opening the bonnet it was obvious the timing belt covers were broken and distorted.

We hired a car for the rest of the holiday and the 306 was later recovered back to the diesel specialist.

They subsequently told me that the mechanic that worked on my car lasted a very short time before they terminated his employment due to poor workmanship.

Just before they had the car, it had had a new timing belt, idler, tensioner, water pump and aux belt so I was confident they are good. Upon the garage stripping the car, this was confirmed, the timing belt hadn't even been broken.

However the camshaft pulley is broken and the camshaft is broken in two places. Bearing cap 3 (pulley end) has a neat crack through the top (visible in the photo below), the other caps are intact but number 2 has a chunk out of the side. The centre piece of the broken camshaft can't be moved, the other two can.

The following photos should help explain.


Camshaft cover removed


Broken camshaft pulley


Clean break between caps 2 and 1. Both caps look intact, but cap 2 has a chunk missing on the left had side, also this side of the cap is scored.


Camshaft break on the driven side of cap 2.

The garage told me they could move all sections of the broken cam shaft, but I can't move the centre section under cap 2. It may be the raised valves under the cam lobes holding it tight onto the cap though?

Because they claim the cam shaft isn't seized, they've told me it's not their problem and they are guessing it might be a dropped valve but they don't want to take the head off without charging for it. I really felt I was being fobbed off and kept having to pull them up on things.

I paid them £700 to diagnose and re-shim the camshaft and now I have a potentially scrap car.

Any suggestions on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated?

[Jenkosowls]

new engine and jobs a good un seems like vlaves have come into contact with the piston and rather than bend have snapped the cam which i know couple of people have had before. the NA lump should be fairly cheap to get hold of

[con67]

Hateful bud, stick around here get yourself some spanners and get the head off youll probably do a better job than your garage. f*ck i hate these stories, 700 quid??? They shouldve fitted a low mileage engine at the start ffs theyve misdiagnosed the original fault imo even if not broken your cam. Lift the head off and measure the piston protrusion and work from there.

[daddyfixit]

they would have removed the cambelt covers to either;
1. remove the camshaft pulley
2. to turn the camshaft pulley

during the re-shimming ?? therefore the blame is on the garage (not the individual) as they took the money for doing the job.
- the legal term is "showing duty of care" which they admitted they havent as the mech was a tosser and they got rid of him. just because he is gone, the blame still lies with them.

so get onto trading standards on monday morning to get them involved and ask what your rights are, and ask them how to proceed without it costing you money.

[con67]

Yes 100%

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Mate just check the vacuum pump hasnt siezed or imploded inside.

[Danny2009]

This happened to one of my old cars, the cambelt slipped and valves touched the pistons the valves were fine but snapped the cam like yours has, fitted a new head and all was good

[jamesgmg]

Hateful bud, stick around here get yourself some spanners and get the head off youll probably do a better job than your garage.

That is an option and it's not a huge amount more work now to get the head off. But at the moment I'm trying to establish if the cause of the failure is certainly due to the work the garage did re-shimming the valves as I'd like to claim the costs back if possible.

I noticed this morning when looking again, that the cam spocket is now on the end of it's slotted holes. This would suggest to me that this part was seized and the belt has pulled the pulley round to the end of the slots and then broken? The point being that the sprocket wasn't the first thing to break.

Also when I previously spoke to the garage they say that they only removed the centre bolt on the cam pulley, they didn't touch the 3 bolts securing the cam sprocket to the hub.

Also interesting was they said that they never released the tension on the timing belt, they slid it off and on again without re-tensioning the belt. That doesn't sound by the book to me?

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theyve misdiagnosed the original fault imo even if not broken your cam.

Not sure what you mean that they miss-diagnosed the fault?

They did a compression test to establish low compression on one cylinder. After setting up the valve clearances with shims, it ran fine. Until it failed...

[Toms306]

If you can slide the belt off/on without tensioning it........whats to stop it sliding off!? Definitely not right that!!

[jamesgmg]

If you can slide the belt off/on without tensioning it........whats to stop it sliding off!? Definitely not right that!!

I thought so too! They told me this as I asked if the belt tension could have been set incorrectly. Their reply was that they never touched the tensioner. I didn't think it was possible to get a tensioned belt on and off the sprockets, but they seem to think so.

[Jonny81191]

It's not possible to get it back on, but you can just about slide it off.

[con67]

Misread op.....

[londondan86]

What a shitter mate. I wouldn't strip any more off it for now until you have spoken to trading standards, defo your next move.
But I doubt the car is scrap, new head or replace engine, both a lot cheaper than what you paid to begin with.

[Ruan]

They've put it back together wrong...

Notice your cam caps, they are marked 1, 2 and 3...

Peugeot ALWAYS mark their engines from the flywheel end, so cylinder one is NOT the cambelt end, it's the flywheel end... Therefore, your cam caps should be 1 on the flywheel end and 3 on the cambelt end, the bloke has put them in upside down with them (when looking at the engine, they should say 3, 2, 1 - they actually read 1, 2, 3 from what I can see)...

The cam caps are line bored, meaning the machine runs through them with the caps in place to make the holes, if you switch caps, there may be machining differences (and there usually is...) there's a high likelihood that you'll end up scoring the cams and them seizing - just because it's not seized any more, doesn't mean it failed by seizing it... You can seize an engine solid, let it cool down and it'll run again...

I rekon that's the problem.

[jamesgmg]

Therefore, your cam caps should be 1 on the flywheel end and 3 on the cambelt end, the bloke has put them in upside down with them (when looking at the engine, they should say 3, 2, 1 - they actually read 1, 2, 3 from what I can see)...

It's not easy to see in the photos, but I believe they are in the correct order. 1 is at the flywheel end, 3 is at the sprocket end. Cap 2 could have gone back on the wrong way round (180 degrees out) though the cap numbers are all on the manifold side. I have seen a picture of this engine with cap 2 the other way round though, so I don't know how consistent that is.

Interesting point about freeing up when cold that I hadn't thought about. The engine failed after about 10-15 minutes into the drive from cold.

[Ruan]

Ahh, it does look in the photos like they're the wrong way round....

Yeah, it's very common for an engine to seize due to a component overheating (obviously metal expands when hot...) then when cooled down, it'll turn freely again... Though usually if you take off the caps, you should see metal smeared on the bearing surfaces - mostly the camshaft, since the aluminium cap is softer than the hardened steel camshaft.

[jamesgmg]

The garage eventually agreed to repair the car whatever they found for no cost. They've now stripped the engine and have found they were at fault so reconditioned cylinder head is ordered along with timing belt kit and other bits. They assure me it will be done properly as "they don't want to see the car again"! I have a 12 month warranty on the work in writing.

He wants to go through their diagnosis with me with the removed parts when I pick it up. Really want to know what it was!

[spike2002]

Resault mate

[Poodle]

Good work mate, fair play for sticking to your guns. Pity it took so long to be resolved, but i guess that's what you've got to do if you want to see an honest result these days.

[Kwik]

that's good glad they decided to fix it

[jamesgmg]

Put a few thousand miles on the car now since repair and all seems good so far. Had a small oil leak from the vacuum pump which they sorted. Engine runs better than ever and starts perfectly. Not sure if I'd use ever use them again, but we'll see.

[Mattcheese31]

i'd have bought 2 more 306's for 700 quid but hey ho . .

[jamesgmg]

i'd have bought 2 more 306's for 700 quid but hey ho . .

True, but could have ended up with a right dog!.

[Mattcheese31]

i'd have bought 2 more 306's for 700 quid but hey ho . .

True, but could have ended up with a right dog!.

yeah but you'd have had 2 other cars for spares . . .: