Technical Fiat Ducato 2.8JTD alternator/cambelts

[Southstoke]

I have a Murvi Morello motorhome, based on a Fiat Ducato 2.8jtd van, which I bought new in May 2004. The van is probably a little older, as it takes Murvi a while to do the conversion, and its VIN number is ZFA24400007355405. While driving home, the battery light came on on the dashboard but the van carried on OK for a while and I assumed that the alternator had packed up but the battery should get me home. Then after a mile or so, the temperature gauge started going up, it misfired a bit, then cut out completely. I dropped the clutch and the engine had stopped, I raised the clutch again and it would not fire. There were no expensive mechanical noises but there was a lot of gurgling, as though the radiator water was far too hot. I let the engine cool and tried to start it but it would not fire (again no peculiar mechanical noises). Its only done 19000 miles and has always been serviced by a main dealer in Bristol, who now say the cambelt has gone and they need to lift the head to check for valve damage. Can anyone tell me:
1. Is the alternator/water pump driven by a separate belt ie not the main cambelt?
2. If the alternator belt fails, can it damage the cambelt?
3. Does the service book clearly say that the cambelt should be changed after 4 or 5 years (the dealer has never mentioned this and I cannot check my book as its in the van at the dealers)?
4.Can one not check for valve damage by doing a compression test?
5. Are Fiat's Customer Service people at all helpful if a main dealer has given poor service?

 

[Davren]

Hi, Welcome to the FF.

According to your VIN, the chassis was built by Fiat in December 2003.

I'm not familiar with the Ducato but:

1. The parts catalogue suggests that the alternator and water pump are driven by an auxiliary drive belt, not the cambelt.

2. If an auxiliary drive belt fails, it's always possible that bits of it can get into the cambelt and damage it.

3. Pass, but you could download a handbook from the forum downloads section here:
https://www.fiatforum.com/downloads.php?do=cat&id=23

4. You can't do a compresion test if the cambelt is broken. The crankshaft will turn but the camshaft won't. Turning the engine over in this condition would cause further damage to the engine.

5. Pass.

 

[Southstoke]

Hi Davren

Thanks for the rapid and helpful reply. Is there anywhere that I can down load a drawing of the 2.8jtd engine, so that I can understand whether the alternator/water pump belt is anywhere near the cambelt? If the alternator belt had broken and damaged/broken the cambelt drive, does it not seem odd that the van carried on working normally (except for the temperature starting to go up) for quite a while?

I have checked the owners handbook that you referred me to and it says that the cambelt should be changed after 4 years. I have also found a joblist that was with the May 2008 service bill and it says "Replace timing belt every 5 years", so I do not understand why the main dealer did not say anything when it was serviced in May 2009.

Thanks for your help

 

[Davren]

The auxiliary drive belt is only a few centimeters in front of the cambelt and the two belts run parallel with each other. There should be a plastic cover between the two, but bits of broken belt can sometimes still get through.

I suspect the sequence of events was; first the auxiliary belt broke. This caused the water pump to stop which in turn caused your engine to over heat and the temperature gauge to rise. While you were contunuing to drive the vehicle, a piece of the broken auxiliary belt or plastic cover went into the cambelt causing it to break.

Immediately the cambelt breaks, the engine would misfire and cut out.

I don't have a diagram of the engine, but in the downloads section I refered you to. there is an eLEARN workshop manual for vehicle that would have.

If you choose to download it, you need to unzip the rar file with WinRar and burn the resulting files to CD then run the setup.exe file from the CD. The CD needs to to be in your CD drive whilst using the manual.

 

[FreeSpirit]

Hi
I have heard of the same thing happening to someone else, unfortunately one of the auxillary belts broke - either the alternator (most likely) or the A/C belt & some how it entered the small gap in the plastic timing cover which then resulted in the Timing belt breaking or jumping teeth.
The sequence of events Daven has stated in the previous post is probably spot on, initally when the alternator belt broke (which is the one located closest to the timing belt), this then resulted in the water pump not operating as they use the same belt, (causing the overheating) then somehow the broken belt (trapped by the A/C belt if installed) must have been dragged by the rotating crankshaft pulley into the gap behind it & the lower timing cover & then "forced" into the timing belt cover. You can view pictures of the extact setup on one of my earlier posts - 2.8 JTD Timing Belt Replacement which has a link at the bottom of the page to photobucket with some pictures of the steps in replacing the Timing belt which should give you an idea of what it all looks like. The picture below is the lower timing belt cover with the crankshaft pulley removed, there is only a small gap as you can see between the cover & the crankshaft timing sprocket. I would think the lower Timing cover would be damaged if the alternator belt was forced through this gap.

The Link below is to the complete post of replacing the 2.8 JTD timing belt & link to additional pictures on photobucket -
https://www.fiatforum.com/ducato/218539-2-8-jtd-timing-belt-replacement.html
As the 2.8 JTD is a interference engine - meaning if the belt broke or even jumped a few teeth it is highly likely the valves would come in contact with the top of the piston causing at least a few bent valves at a minimum.
If you read my step by step guide on replacing the timing belt it will give you an idea of what is involved in replacing the belt during normal maintenance. If there is valve damage requiring the cylinder head to be removed etc then further costs will be involved. But hopefully this should give you an idea of what possibly happened & what the repairer is talking about. As for just replacing the timing belt then checking compression or even seeing if it would start I am not sure about & would probably only be attempted if doing it yourself as a garage would not recommend that course of action. Although if valve damage did occur I would have thought the valves hitting the pistons would have resulted in some sort of (expensive) mechanical noise at the time. Is it is worth a second opinion as to what damage has really occurred???
Hope this helps
P.S.
I have had the timng belt break on our Mitsubishi van which is also an interference engine but I replaced the belt/s & the engine sprang to life initally with a miss due to bled down hydraulic lifters which soon rectified themselves after 10 mins running & has since done 90,000 kls without any trouble so you can be lucky.

 

[Southstoke]

Thanks for your help Guys. The garage has now confirmed that a broken alternator belt has managed to get into the timing chest and damage the timing belt. It seems to me that the owners manual is seriously defective, because its comments about the battery light coming on do not mention that your engine is about to blow up! Also, the design of the timing belt cover must be seriously defective, if it cannot prevent entry by the alternator belt. Does anyone know if Fiat are at all helpful on issues like this?

The garage are now going to take the head off to assess the damage and I will have to establish why they did not follow Fiat's instructions and change all the belts when it was serviced in May 09. Does anyone know a good lawyer who understands engines?!

Thanks again

Trevor

 

[Camper John]

Hi, I have a similar problem with my Fiat Ducato based Swift Camper Van. I bought in new in 2001 and it has only done 13,000m. In my case, the electrics are still working and it only overheats when climbing steep hills. I am currently touring the Alps so this is a bit of a problem. The fans are not kicking in so could this just be a faulty switch? Can I fix this temporarily by shorting out the contacts on the connector to the switch (bottom RHS of radiator when facing van). Thanks for your help.