Wife's PT Cruiser snapped a timing belt

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Popdart

Popdart

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Hey guys, my wife's 2001 PT snapped a timing belt yesterday and I just found out its an interference engine. Its the 2.4 DOHC engine. Anyone have any experience with this engine? Should I bother to try to fix it or scrap it?? I was thinking of getting a rebuilt head and trying the repair myself, but there isn't a whole lot of room in there. Rog
 
I try to fix everything. I dont win them all.
I would buy a Chilton manual and a timming belt. I would set up the timming marks and run a compression test.
 
If your extremely lucky there was no collision. If you tear it down and find definite piston to valve collision that may not turn out to be your only problem. The impact can cause a flat spot on the bearing. The problem with doing the head only as I found out the hard way is that you may have also damaged the rod bearing thru the impact. I had a ford escort from years ago before they went to non interference that snapped a belt and I tore it down fixed the head and when I cranked it up I had a rod knock from one of the rod bearings(that definitely wasn't there before) that eventually completely lunched.I wouldn't do the head only I would tear it down and inspect/replace the bearings.
 
yeah i agree with redfish replace the timing belt and cross your fingers they don't always bend valves
 
I might haul it home from the repair shop where I had it towed. She's needed a better car anyway so we'll get her car for her. The PT I could work on in my "spare" time. Good advice guys . . . for the cost of a timing belt, I could learn alot, and maybe get lucky. We still owe $2000 on it. Thanks
 
Popdart said:
I might haul it home from the repair shop where I had it towed. She's needed a better car anyway so we'll get her car for her. The PT I could work on in my "spare" time. Good advice guys . . . for the cost of a timing belt, I could learn alot, and maybe get lucky. We still owe $2000 on it. Thanks
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I think if I still owed on a 2001 I would definately make it run even if it didn't run good and trade it for something brand new, on a 5 year plan.
Buy the book for it too. If the book says timming belt every 60 thou.miles,
do it ! If your dealer is going to take care of it for the first 5 years anyway... you cant loose. Our 04 Rav4 has been paid off for a while now. It wasn't easy . The property taxes and collision insurance added into the budget may as well be considered 2 more monthly payments. Add another for tires and one more for maintance and we've got 73 or 4 times the 400.00 per month in it. No regrets. Good luck in any case.
 
Seems the 2.4 is a non interference engine as far as the piston to valve clearence goes. Pistons have indentations to clear. But the issue of contact is between the valves because it's a DOHC. Some on the internet have got lucky and the cams stopped at the same time after belt failure and didn't cause damage. Maybe I got a chance.
 
Send me a PM with your email address. I have a 2005 factory service manual in PDF format that I can email you. It will be close enough for what you need to do and a ton better than the Chilton manual.
 
Popdart said:
Seems the 2.4 is a non interference engine as far as the piston to valve clearence goes. Pistons have indentations to clear. But the issue of contact is between the valves because it's a DOHC. Some on the internet have got lucky and the cams stopped at the same time after belt failure and didn't cause damage. Maybe I got a chance.
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Well if thats the case id try and fix it. In the future keep an eye on those timing chains and belts though.
 
I really love interference motors............

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interference?!?!?! THAT looks like unnecessary roughness, with some face-masking, high sticking and liberal punching below the belt :toothy10:

I got lucky with an old subaru wagon that snapped the timing belt, changed the belt and all was good....I even tried to push start it after it stalled, no knowing why it stalled til we got it home.....but lucky very lucky
 
Thanks Redfish . . . good advice

Thanks Doug for the manual.

Let's hope I get lucky . . . I'll keep ya updated. Thanks again
 
Did she here any really loud banging or was she turning lots of RPMs when it snapped? or was it just idling when it did it? I would think that would matter as far as damage. The one above looks like it broke at a pretty high rpm.
 
Elderly lady running down the highway at 65 in a Kia wagon when the rubber timing belt let go with 45k miles on it. I was right behind her when it let loose.
Luckily I had my car trailer behind me and after winching it onto the trailer, I took her and the car to the local KIA dealership.
Stopped back the next day and that is what they found.

Notice both exhaust valves in the # 1 piston. Now I know why the thing looked like a Top Fuel engine that had just blown up at the finish line.
 
Wife said "I just turned a corner and I thought I had a flat tire because it was hard to steer . . . then I realized it had stalled". So, it was very low RPM's. It was running ok before the turn.
 
I agree with Popdart. It is a non-interference engine. I have a 2002 cruiser but had no issues with the timing belt.(yet)
 
I would slap a belt on it and see what happens...of course you could pull the head and see if there was an issue...but if it truly is a non-interference engine then it should be good. How many miles were on it? 65-70K. Just curious.
 
130,000 miles on it. Belt changed around 90,000. I'm going to throw a belt on it and check compression and see what I have (good idea, thanks Redfish!)
 
My understanding is the 2.0 is an interference motor, but the 2.4 is not. On the PTCrew forum, pretty sure they were saying the only concern was with aftermarket, high lift cams, or high rpm when the belt let's go.
 
Kinda what I read, that if the belt goes and the cams get out of sync, the valves can contact each other. At low rpm, there may be only little damage or none. High rpm on the other hand is another scene . . . Rog
 
crap the second one only lasted 40K miles.....where did you get the first one...I'd probably not put the same one on again.
 
throw it on the trailer, go to any dealership you want, tell them it wont run and you were gonna trade it anyways. let them deal with it since you said she needed a better car anyways.
 
For some good advice on this subject may I suggest you go to www.ptcruiserlinks.com. Everything I've read there says that the engine is a non interference engine. They say that when the timing belt is changed that you should also change the tension-er and water pump. And also it is said that this belt is a real pain to install correctly and often suggest that unless you are a very skilled mechanic, it might be best to have it done in a shop.
 
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