any ideas ???

[cody206]

Okay, first I wanna say that I'm not really mechanically inclined so it's hard for me to make sense out of alot of this. But my timing belt was recently replaced by a mechanic and now the car won't even start. When I gave the car to him it would start/run/drive, and now it won't even start. Below are some emails he sent me with a description of the problem. I spoke with some reputable mechanics around here and they suggested to me that withhold payment until he finds out the problem, but he's not going to look into it unless charging me for labor. I'm not going to pay for that since it stopped running while in his care. Here are some emails he sent. At this point, since it stopped running immediately after he performed the work on it, my lawyer has advised me to pursue him legally. He said I have a good case, but I wanted to get some opinions here as to whether or not he can be blamed. So my question is: Do the symptoms described below relate to an improper installation of a timing belt? My car is a 1990 Non-Turbo FWD 2.0L.
Feel free to reply here or directly to my email, [email protected]

I performed a complete timing assembly replacement, including all timing side oil seals. I started by refering to Alldata vehicle information to find the cylinder locations and firing order. Then I drained the engine oil and coolant, and removed the #1 spark plug, plug cover, timing covers, accessory belts and mounting hardware. Then I braced the engine from underneath and removed the driver's side engine mount and lower timing cover. Put #1 cyl. at TDC and repeatedly verified the correct placement of all other timing marks throughout the job. Removed belts, tensioners, then crank, balencer shaft, and both cam gears, then removed all respecting oil seals. checked seal surfaces, took pics of all seals before removal. only cam gear's seals were leaking, rest were OK. verified correct placement of oil pump, balance shaft, crank, cams and tensioners. all belts and fasteners tightened to specifications from manufacturer. with all timing belts installed properly and all components aligned to specs, I reassembled what I had serviced. I replaced the old coolant , and the engine oil with 4 quarts of 10w 40 oil. I started the engine and it ran very good. turned off the car and started it again a few minutes later. never ran it for more than 20 seconds as I do not have a fan in my space for proper ventilation. When I went to start it once more 15 minutes later, I tried several times to start it, but I couldn't hear the engine fire, checked spark on all four plug wires, no spark coming from number 3 wire, and number 4's spark plug hole had a 1/2" of oil in it(from leaking valve cover gasket. upon inspection of spark plugs, I found them all to be soaked in oil, almost dripping. inspection through sparg plug hole showed droplets of oil on all four piston faces, fine oil spray came out of all four spark plug holes when engine was cranked at starting speed with plugs removed. This suggests internal seal leakage at the piston rings or valve stem oil seals.

reccomended method of repair(if valve stem seals are the cause) is to replace valve stem oil seals and rebuild cyclinder head, or remove old cylinder head and replace with a rebuilt unit. $1000+

reccomended method of repair (if the piston rings are the cause) is to remove and rebuild the engine, or replace with suitable replacement engine. $1500-$2000+

The change in compression ratio, was what I was referring to as a CONTRIBUTOR to the problem. I cannot POSITIVELY identify the PROBLEM or the CAUSE without proper time to do a thorugh investigation of the problem(which costs time, money and testing). I gave you the best evaluation of the problem I could with what time I had to without charging you for more labor. You have oil in your combustion chamber, that is your main problem. What we don't know positively yet is HOW the oil got in. There are only three direct barriers keeping oil out of the combustion chamber: your valve stem oil seals, piston rings, and head gasket. You also have to understand that you have pressure throughout the engine (behind all those barriers) trying to get into the combustion chamber(and trying to bring oil with it). This is why you have a PCV (positive crankcase ventilation) valve. This valve bleeds off excess pressure into the atmosphere or back into the intake tract. If this valve does not work properly or is close to failure then the pressure builds and seals will leak or fail. When your timing belt is streched or close to breakage, the valve timing settings are off, which means the combustion chamber pressures are not what they are supposed to be. What I am trying to illustrate for you is that when you have replaced so many worn components at once, but still have so many other interacting parts that show severe wear (like excessive oil leakage) you CANNOT expect the new parts to solve all the problems that the engine has. YOU WANTED YOUR TIMING ASSEMBLY CHANGED, AND THAT IS WHAT I PERFORMED ON YOUR CAR. YOU OWE ME THAT MONEY FOR MY TIME AND THOSE PARTS ON YOU CAR. IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO PAY ME, I WILL BE TAKING THE PARTS BACK.

[1stGenRocks]

tell him to go ahead and put the car back the way it was, take the new parts put the old back on and make it run again. lol jk. it sounds like you've got a case.
btw he sounds kinda stupid because oil in the combustion chamber would stop the plug from sparking but it wouldnt keep the wire from having spark