Club 80-90 Forums

Hi all, I've recently put my 1.6 td JX into a garage for a head gasket replacement. Before refitting I had the head tested and skimmed. The engine was reassembled and on fireing up they encountered a problem. The cam snapped. The proprietor says this is pure bad luck (I'll blinking say).

My question is, is he right or are there more likely to be other reasons?

I know what ever the ways and where fors are I'll have to pick up the tab as I won't be able to prove to the contrary.

Your input and views would be welcomed. Regards, Max.

Very, very unlikely to be a coincidence. They almost certainly did something wrong. For a start, VW state that diesel cylinder heads must not be refaced.

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Thanks aj. So I'm wrong in thinking that the slightly thicker three notched gasket is used to compensate for the head being skimmed. I thought it was pretty much standard practice.
We live and learn.

in my experience the valves touched the pistons when cranking.

or a cam bearing got no lube

nothing else really

Perhaps tightening sequence when installing camshaft, or it was dropped ??

Give them a chance to fix it for you (FOC), or if not consider getting an engineers report on the cause of failure.

I have recently seen a similar situation on another forum, car went in for work, it came out rattling.Not us mate. Subsequent stripdown showed an inlet manifold washer in the combustion chamber.

Good point about tightening or dropped 937

Hi folks, I got my van back last Friday and I've just been to pay the bill. To say it was reasonable let me say I rounded it up and gave him an extra 60 quid.

I left with the parting words "give it a good run, any issues you know where we are".

What can I say, job's a good un' and all's well that . . .

Regards, Max

Thanks for posting an update and final resolution.

So many times people prefer to moan about a garage, rather than giving them a chance to fix things. There are good ones out there