Timer belt Broken .. will it damage engine ?

[wbmkk]

Quite a while ago I had my 1.6L diesel water-cooled T25 MOT'd then drove it home .. parking it on my driveway.

It has sat there for several months, in fact since pre covid

I tried it last year but it wouldn't turn over .. I had even made a couple of posts here.

A mate, who used to own a garage looked at it and found the timing belt had gone, as in broken.

My question is .. how could this just go after the van was driven home, but never moved since. Could the action of trying to start it have caused this.

Furthermore, he said some engines if the timing belt goes, it is very possible that serious damage could have been done to the engine, BUT, with some engines, this is not the case. He did try to explain the cause, but to be fair, the technical details went right over my head.

He reckoned folk on a forum would know, hence this posting

[T25boy71]

I when you turned the engine over to did you hear the pistons hitting the valves?
If it did hit the valves you’ll have to remove the head check for the damage.
you may be lucky and just set the timing up fit new belt turn it over by hand.
In all honesty you’re probably better off removing the head and checking for damage as you can then have a look at the state of the engine and whether or not it needs anything else