Lucky today

[totta Crolla]

I think anyway.
Went to start the car and it did'nt start first time, second attempt it turned over and then made a horrible noise from the engine.
After a little investigation I discovered that the cam belt tensioner spring had come adrift and pierced the cambelt, it was trying to rotate with the belt
The belt was very loose and had jumped a couple of teeth, I expected that but I had not expected the small stud that the tensioner pivots on to have come out completely.
Anyone care to suggest a series of events for what happened here ?
Lucky ? Just a new belt and spring needed.

[fax0815]

Pretty close call!!!
Had a similar thing a few weeks back. I had ingintion problems and took the covers of to see if the marks line up like they are supposed to. I found that my spring was loose, too! Just waiting to rip my cambelt into pieces.
I was very lucky, too.

[totta Crolla]

Ah so it's no an isolated case then.
I shall be keeping a very close eye on it in the future.
What did you do with yours, new spring ?

[Ivan141]

if you're running a stock 4age, nothing bad would have happened anyway.

[fax0815]

totta Crolla Wrote:Ah so it's no an isolated case then.
I shall be keeping a very close eye on it in the future.
What did you do with yours, new spring ?

I´d put in a new spring if my head was stock, usually change it with every belt.

But I´d say it is an isolated case, cause I´ve got a massive skimmed head (talking about mm taken off by previous owner)
I allways had to tighten the belt by hand to get decent tension, so I just ditched the spring.

[totta Crolla]

Now there's a plan, I'm gonna ditch that spring too