I just thought I would post a short? story about Internet forums.
A few years ago I bought a MK2 celica supra, unforunatley driving home one evening the engine went completly dead. I called the AA who arrived with 30 mins, the AA guy asked me to turn the engine over and immediatley said that the cambelt had gone (as I had feared). He also said that I would have definately bent valves and be looking at an expensive repair.
I had the car towed home and it sat in the garage for a month or two while I thought about if I should scrap the car (spares are very hard to find) or repair it. I local garage had replaced the clutch on our other car and when I picked it up I spoke with the mechanic to see what he thought. He picked up this huge reference book and looked it up. The book said "valve damage very likely" at this point I thought I might as be calling the local scrap yard.
I had grown to really like the car and was reluctant to scrap it. I seemed to recall that someone had told me once that a lot of toyota engines were non interference. After a quick search on the web I found a forum for MK2 supra owners (mainly US owners) and posted a question. I had an excellent response and the answer was that the engines are definately non interference and all I had to do was fit a new cambelt. They also gave some great tips on how to do this.
If it wasn't for that forum I would have scrapped the car!
BTW - the cambelt failed due to a seized tensioner pully.
I have another interesting? tale about extremely stubborn crankshaft bolts if anyone is interested, bit of a "top tip" and better off on the technical board I suppose.
I hope I didn't bore you all!
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A common happening.
Thank you for contacting us and bringing this to our attention. The latest edition of the Timing Belts book does indeed quote the Mazda MX-5 as being an interference type engine. However, recent information we have received from our operations in the USA, where this model is very popular, and further research in the UK has revealed that it is in fact a freewheeling
type engine. The Mazda workshop manual information is very ambiguous in this respect and in these cases we always default to quoting "interference".
We have made a note of this and the next edition of the Timing Belts manual will reflect this changed information.
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Have been developing Web Applications since 93, before the www hit the mainstream, and in the past 10 years I have tired of web sites. However, there are just 3 sites that I visit on a daily basis. HonestJohns, The Register and the BBC News.
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