How do I remove valves on a 98 ducato

[JacksDucato]

Hello all.
I have a 98 2.5 ducato, bought it a week ago, timing belt had not been changed (101k) on clock, anyway bought a timing belt kit and the belt snapped a day before I was going to change it!
I am not a mechanic but can handle most jobs engine related but my knowledge of valves is limited.
I have the cylinder head off and ive taken off the camshaft, now im stuck, how do I take the valves out as im sure there is damage done as the camshaft would only turning very slightly by hand.
Any help or advice would ge great thanks.

 

[sludgeguts]

The camshaft would be a bit difficult to turn by hand as it will be acting against the valve springs.
Buy or hire a decent valve spring compressor.

Don't buy this type as the double body parts tend to twist - it's cheapo and naff & you'll regret it.

Note how this type has the single body part (although this is still a cheapo so it may still twist).
Anyway, that's what you're looking for. If you can borrow or hire then all the better for a one-off.

This type can be done with the head on a bench (I'd put a bit of wood under the valves though)
With the spring compressed I use a large magnetic screwdriver to ease the collets off the stem.
Refitting is simple enough - I like to use a tiny bit of vaseline to help hold the collets on the stem whilst the spring is coming up.

with the collets off & spring out of the way, the valves should move freely. what often happens when the belt snaps is that everything tends to keep going until a valve hits a piston crown - which can bend the stem.

Small tip - a simple 'shield' or cover made from a plastic bottle can be cut and slipped over the part compressing the spring. It might never come into play but it can save the looooong wait for the stealer's parts dept to open to buy a 50p collet when the last one of a 24valve head decides to 'ping' into oblivion. with the spring compressed and the collets 'stuck' in place, slip the shield over then slowly release the spring.

 

[JacksDucato]

Sound advice there thanks, will be tackling the job this weekend.

 

[s130]

Depending on how fast the engine was reving you may be luck to have only bent a few valves.

Some tips.

1) NOTE every valves cylinder head position as you remove. Push stems into some cardboard, mark up, one by one.

2) bench roll each valve. ie. stem on smooth flat surface with head overlapping surface edge. Mark up cardboard as bent or possible OK.

3) For every valve NOT obviously bent then try gently valve lapping it into its correct head valve seat. You should see a totally uniform, round and concentic 'wear/grind' ring on both valve and valve seat. If not then this valve is bent as well.

4) all valves, new and old shoud be 'lapped' back into their old or new positions.

5) after they are all lapped and refitted, (don't fit camshaft yet) turn the cyliner head upwards and level as best as possible. Now pour parafin into each combustion chamber as full as possible and allow to rest overnight. Hopefully in the morning all the chamber will still be very full of parafin. Any that is not needs a some more valve lapping as there is some valve bypass going on.

 

[Tipo4]

Hi there. Good to see someone giving a go at their own repair jobs. Sludgeguts and s130's tips are dead on and very important. You can't afford to cut corners with heads.

Just another tip, when refitting the head make sure all of the pistons are well away from top dead centre before bolting it down. When timing, time the head before you time the crank. It may sound obvious, but a lot people forget this and kick themselves after they've bent their valves again.

Hope it goes well

Good luck mate

 

[JacksDucato]

Thanks all for the advice, I have ordered a the tool from my local motor factors, (things happen slow where I am) its not in stock yet!
I have a friend who has more knowledge than me regards timing the engine, its all striped down now and we hope to get the valves out this week.
2 questions to ask. When we took off the camshaft there is a metal cyclinder with a round plate sitting over the valves, 2 of the round metal plates fell off and have been scored by the camshaft, what are these plates called and what is the metal cyclinder called?
2nd question I have come across an engine and gearbox out of a 93 ducato, its 2.5 diesel, would this engine fit my 98 ducato?

 

[s130]

The round cylinders with round plates in are what is called a "cam follower".

The round insert plate is a "shim". One changes the thickness of the shim to adjust the valve clearance. You WILL have to do this when you have finished lapping the valves in and refit the cam shaft.

On the underside of the shim (which is case hardened) is etched it's thickness in mm. If the etching has worn off then you need to measure and record the shim thickness with a micrometer.

While you have the valves out measure and record ALL the shim sizes and keep them paired with the follower/bucket they were with. Do not mix them up! Note values by valve number (1 through 8)

A normal valve clearance for a Fiat petrol engine (assuming they are not hydraulic which they won't be on your engine) is 0.4mm for inlet and 0.5mm for exhaust. For your diesel engine I don't know the value so you will have to find this out yourself.

When you have the head reassembled, but not yet bolted back to the block, rotate the camshaft until one cam lobe is pointing vertically up. Now measure the gap by insterting a feeler guage between the back of the cam lobe and the top of the cam follower. Let us say that it measures 0.35mm and is an Exhaust Valve. We need to increase this gap to 0.5mm a difference of 0.15mm. Let us say the shim on this valve is 2.45mm. To get the gap increase we have to change the shim, reducing the size to 2.30mm.

The shims should NEVER be ground, however if the surface conditions look good you can move them around. So if you measure all the gaps and do the maths you may find you can swop shims around to get the clearances required on most of the valves (if you are lucky). A point will come where you will have to go and buy some shims of the correct size from you Fiat dealer.

Sounds complicated but is fairly straight forward.

As for your scored cam shaft that could be a problem. I'm not sure what you mean by "fell off" but I'm assuming the cam shaft lobe has rotated over the cam follower buck when the shim was missing. The cam followers are hardended steel and the raised edges would have certainly chewed the edges of the cam lobes. If this has happened then you will need a replacement camshaft. Sorry!

 

[JacksDucato]

It was a shim that fell out, must of stuck to the cam shaft and dropped off when we took the shaft off. At least now I know what that part is called, got a call today to say there is a 97 ducato near me for sale, went to see it, nice clean van, loads of work done, new injectors and brake pads recently, timing belt not done, 450e will buy it, its a lwb hr.
So stuck a deposit on it and gonna buy it and fit a timing belt kit to it straight away. Have the kit sitting on passenger seat of other ducato so as soon as I pull up in the new van the belt kit is been fitted.
I have written down all the advice you guys have given and my mate who has more knowledge on the interanals of an engine can read through it.
Now im not sure whether the van I have will be put back on the road or used as spares

 

[s130]

It was a shim that fell out, must of stuck to the cam shaft and dropped off when we took the shaft off.

Well it if fell off like that then the scoring on the camshaft must habe been old damage done at some other time.

Wish you luck with the new van.

 

[JacksDucato]

bought the new van last thursday (97 2.5 ducato) and wait for it the belt snapped on Friday morning, the guy i bought it from is standing over it, I stripped it down and he took the head away to be fixed, 3 bent valves replaced and the head is as good as new.
We put it back together and turned the bottom pulley by hand, it goes so far and catches.
We reckon the timing is out, on the cam pulley we first lined it up with the v lining up to notch on rocker cover, we used a pin (screw driver) to lock gearbox and lined up pump with a pin which if we are right goes in at the bottom of pulley.
Turning engine by hand it was catching,
So we found a tiny mark on cam pulley and repeated the process and its still catching.
So is there another way to time it, are we doing something wrong, Im at my wits end here with 2 broken ducatos! Can anyone help me here please lads?

 

[s130]

This is difficult to answer in a forum as one can't see or feel what is happening.

Before refitting a cylinder head you should time the main crank to TDC with normally cylinder one at TDC. Then you turn the crank back 90 degrees so all the piston are level. Then you refit the head. Now you have to manually rotate the head camshaft till both valves on cylinder one are fully closed as the would be on the compression stroke. Then and only then do you rotate the crank back through 90 degrees to TDC. Now you double check all the alignment marks BEFORE refitting the cam belt.

NOTE!!! Some Fiat engines (my only experience is petrol engines NOT diesels) TDC compression time on cylinder No: 4.

 

[JacksDucato]

Good advice so it looks like its gotta be striped again to get it right, gonna be an expert at this by the time im finished lol.

 

[s130]

Not you don't need to strip again, assuming you haven't bent the valves again. You just need to figure out how to get the pistons level and on the correct stroke with out catching any valves.

On a petrol engine you can remove the spark plugs and examine with a piece of wire where the pistons are and who is going up and who is going down with a small roation of the crank. On a diesel you may be able to do this through the injector holes. If not then a little guessing and gentle play might do the trick.

What you need to ensure is that NO valves are down when a piston is up. Normally pistons 1 and 4 are always BOTH the same height and likewise to 2 and 3. So when the engine is at TDC 1 and 4 are at their highest and 2 and 3 lowest. A turn through 90 degrees will have all pistons level halfway down the bores.

Check the crank position/timing. If 0 to 89 degrees then rotate forward to 90deg. If 91 to 180deg then rotate backwards to 90 degrees. If 271 to 359 degs then rotate back to 270 degrees. If 181 to 268 degrees then rotate forward to 270 degrees. Now you can freely rotate the cam shaft to get No.1 cylinder valves fully closed. (assumes timing on cyl 1 and not 4). Having done this you can then rotate the crank back/forward 90 degrees to TDC. Now fit the belt.

CAUTION! I've not seen a picture / layout of all the pulleys on a Ducato Engine. I also don't know if you have mechanical fuel inection pump OR electronic injectors. This means that the other pully positions could be crucial.

On Fiat petrol twin cam engines the pulley that drives the distributor / fuel pump has to be carefully alinged otherwise the crank big ends will catch/impact on the shaft. (The shaft is profiled/cut-out on one side to allow the crank bigends to pass behind the shaft. You could have a similar setup and it is this shaft alignment that is causing the problem. IF the sticking you noticed is happening NOT at TDC but somewhere between 90 and 180 degrees then it is probably the auxilary shaft timing which is wrong.

I think you need to see if you can find a picture / diagram of your engine on the web or somehow get hold of a Ducato service manual or access to an "Auto Data" book.

 

[JacksDucato]

After a few hours trying to set everything up , we finally got it right, turned engine 6 revoultions by hand, everything looking good, put in battery, double checked everything again, turned it over and after a while got diesel to injectors and its running again!!!!!!
What a sound to hear that engine running again! well happy with it, tomorrow I will be tiding up wiring and stuff like that but the hardest part is over.
Thanks to all who gave me advice along the way, would never of got this far with out you guys.

 

[s130]

Did you find what you thought it was catching on when hand rotating?

Was it valves of the auxilary shaft?

Would be nice to know.

Glad you