Valve breakage on K1800
Discussion
How common is it for a valve to break up on a road use only K1800?
Here's the story...'ve just had a slight disaster here in France. I'd left a nice LHD converted S1 Elise 120 with a classic car sales business last summer. During this week they finally found a buyer, who specified waterless coolant.
While the mechanic was hand operating the throttle from behind the car, expelling air from the coolant, it "suddenly stopped" and wouldn't re-start.
I asked if he'd heard any nasty breaking noises and he claimed he hadn't....but it's lunched at least one valve. Great compression on 3, zero on the 4th!
Because he'd told me there were no odd noises, we spent 8 hours resetting the belts, replacing both crank pulleys, and checking components, for which they will want me to pay his labour....I had spare parts on another low mileage engine.
If he'd said he heard a crunch, I'd have insisted on the compression test as the first thing to do.
I now know of a case where a belt fitted an hour earlier broke, smashing up six valves and bending the rest, and the owner, who was listening to the engine with bonnet open, at about 3000rpm, heard nothing!
Apart from this, how common is 'heads falling off valves' on the K 1800?
The engine has done 70,000 miles since 1999.
Belt, pump and tensioner (auto type) were changed 200km ago last year Tensioner had not loosened but the belt did seem quite floppy, as if it had stretched.
So what could have happened?
1/ Valve head fell off....is this common?
2/ Sintered valve collar broke causing valve to drop....again, how common is this on a road car?
3/ Big over-rev causing a collet to jump out....it hangs on with just one collet till some time later, then drops the valve.
As this has happened when the car was in the hands of a specialist classic car sales place, I think their insurance is going to be taking a hit.
While we've driven it, it's been totally reliable over 9 years use.
Here's the story...'ve just had a slight disaster here in France. I'd left a nice LHD converted S1 Elise 120 with a classic car sales business last summer. During this week they finally found a buyer, who specified waterless coolant.
While the mechanic was hand operating the throttle from behind the car, expelling air from the coolant, it "suddenly stopped" and wouldn't re-start.
I asked if he'd heard any nasty breaking noises and he claimed he hadn't....but it's lunched at least one valve. Great compression on 3, zero on the 4th!
Because he'd told me there were no odd noises, we spent 8 hours resetting the belts, replacing both crank pulleys, and checking components, for which they will want me to pay his labour....I had spare parts on another low mileage engine.
If he'd said he heard a crunch, I'd have insisted on the compression test as the first thing to do.
I now know of a case where a belt fitted an hour earlier broke, smashing up six valves and bending the rest, and the owner, who was listening to the engine with bonnet open, at about 3000rpm, heard nothing!
Apart from this, how common is 'heads falling off valves' on the K 1800?
The engine has done 70,000 miles since 1999.
Belt, pump and tensioner (auto type) were changed 200km ago last year Tensioner had not loosened but the belt did seem quite floppy, as if it had stretched.
So what could have happened?
1/ Valve head fell off....is this common?
2/ Sintered valve collar broke causing valve to drop....again, how common is this on a road car?
3/ Big over-rev causing a collet to jump out....it hangs on with just one collet till some time later, then drops the valve.
As this has happened when the car was in the hands of a specialist classic car sales place, I think their insurance is going to be taking a hit.
While we've driven it, it's been totally reliable over 9 years use.
I'd be even more surprised.
As it's impossible to retrieve the data from a MEMS 1.9 I can't prove they over-revved it, though it's probable.
Normally, in France anyway, they ARE responsible and it would be covered by their insurance, as would their hitting a roundabout while out with a client.
The problem here is that while I'm certain I would 'win' eventually, it'd take up to 2 years and the car would be stuck waiting for engineers reports etc.
Best is some straight talking with them tomorrow. Ultimately, it would be damaging for them if this sort of story was made more public, naming names...
As it's impossible to retrieve the data from a MEMS 1.9 I can't prove they over-revved it, though it's probable.
Normally, in France anyway, they ARE responsible and it would be covered by their insurance, as would their hitting a roundabout while out with a client.
The problem here is that while I'm certain I would 'win' eventually, it'd take up to 2 years and the car would be stuck waiting for engineers reports etc.
Best is some straight talking with them tomorrow. Ultimately, it would be damaging for them if this sort of story was made more public, naming names...
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