We've just (and I mean like last week) fixed a Yamaha YZF250 motocross bike that snapped its camchain. Needed a new head, valves, camshafts, shims + shim buckets, piston, connecting rod...Basically everything from the gearbox up.

It's not a thing to just ignore. If you don't do a cambelt/chain when you're supposed to, it's asking for trouble. The camchain wants doing in the Focus tbh. 60k on the same chain with the tuned engine is just asking for trouble.

It's bent the valves because they were still down when the pistons came back up. It's hit then, and the force from hitting the valves has pushed the camshaft down and pushed the exhaust valves down. Not a pretty sight.

@Prof: Jap engines are non-interference. My Uncle Andy had a Toyota Celica before his Civic, and the belt snapped on that. We simply replaced it and timed it back up, and it worked perfectly!

Need to get my car serviced soon actually

Not in a state to do it myself currently or I would though

Actually, should have spotted it's a four cylinder. Which means I don't have an engine anyway and everything else I said is a bit cheaper. £1500 sounds about right, probably her best option.

Also, there's a consensus (with much split opinion, but about 60/40 in favour) that the big end shells should be replaced on the four cylinder as they take a bit of a knock when the pistons hit the valves and have been known to give way about 10k miles after the head rebuild. Have a look here. Smaky's an ex Alfa mechanic.

Yeah, my wife's MX-5's due a change and it's great we don't have to worry too much about hanging on for a bit.

Chains can break, but its very rare. The main thing is they don't need replacing on a schedule like cam belts.

I had a Manta that was OHC but it had a chain, it was the Ascona 1.9 engine with a slush box. Got a new 1.9 litre bored and stroked with Carlton crank, rods and 95mm pistons. This makes the engine a 2.2 litre unit, with various other mods and a hot cam. At the time, some of the work was done by Blydenstein. I think I ended up with 160bhp, not loads these days but at the time was pretty fast, put a Porsche 944 Lux away on my way home from work pretty easily.

Manta's were great cars. Although you could've gone the whole hog and put a C20LET red-top turbo in it

I always lusted after a Lotus Carlton. An ex-boss of mine had done a Lotus conversion on an estate, which was apparently a bit of a handful...

sorry to say but thats the lash adjusters doing that, not the cam belt

I doubt it, the ticking would stop within a minute or two of starting the engine without driving it, which it wouldn't have if there was air in the lash adjusters, or if the galleys were plugged. We didn't actually do anything with them but the ticking stopped as soon as the chain was changed (there isn't a cam belt on the C900) so I can only reason that it was the chain.

I could have, but I didn't have a time machine handy. I think the car was long sold and possibly written off by new owners(s) at least 3 years before the first red top Turbos cropped up, in the Cav and Calibra In fact, the non turbo had only been in the Astra a year or so when I had the Manta. I sold the Manta to some young guy and ran round in a Nova Sport, for those that don't remember those, they were a Homologation Nova SR with 100bhp, SR engine but with dual Dellorto carbs. Mine had a Group A exhaust and camshaft, pushed 125 bhp in less than 800kg car weight. Then I had a V6 Cavalier Colorado, Vauxhall's book figure for top speed was 149mph in the manual gearbox model, making it cheap and fast, after that went diesel and still am, boring.

not really its a common problem for a lot of engines, for example of the Mitsubishi lancers the ticking would take quite a while to disappear or sometimes not disappear at all, can be due to a build up of crap in them and not necessarily caused by air, thats where a diesel flush works wonders

by C900 do you mean Saab ?? lol they used to have it in the user manual about the ticking noise at engine start up

Oh right, I thought this was like 10-15 years ago or something. The C20LET engines are epic, although they do like to burn a fair bit of oil. The modern EcoTec GM engines are designed to do that. :/

Anyway, I've been pricing a timing belt up, and to get a 1.8 TDCi belt, tensioner and water pump off ebay it's only £75. So not bad, even though it's one hell of a job to do. It takes about three hours to get the plastic belt cover off, near mind the belt!

But I suppose unless we want bent valves and a totalled engine, it's vital. And we need to look at the turbo oil seals anyway, so we can kill two birds with one stone.

I just had my sister's fiesta serviced and changed her front bulbs for some better ones from powerbulbs.com. Gives a far whiter (not chavvy-blue!) light and visibility is increased with no significant dazzlement of oncoming drivers (like you get with poorly-fitted HIDs).

Cambelt is gonna be done around 90k but may get done sooner than that depending on time and money.

I bought some bulbs from Halfords as a friend said these particular ones were loads brighter than stock, and they are whiter, rather than yellow, which is probably the reason. They were on two for one also....but when I fitted them they are ******* very bright, really light up lanes round my house, but they have this like blue bit, like a ring round the bulbs that shows up when you look at the lights....not keen on it, bit Max Power.

NOt sure about the halfords jobbies.

I went with Philips Xtreme Power bulbs. The claim 80% increased visibility and I completely agree. I put them on my Golf and the difference was remarkable (given that I don't have Xenons).