Broke my timing belt. Options

[bccentaur3]

Hey guys. After droping my sister off, I was at a yield sign and was rolling in 4th gear. Well I thought I was losing power because I was at mayb 10 mph and had no power so I dropped down to 3rd gear. Well it just kept losing power and died. At first I thought I ran it out of gas, but no because I had a little over the last line. I was close to a gas station any way. Well went to get gas and gased it up and tried to crank it over and no go. So how long can my car sit before I can change the belt out? O btw today we had a wind chill of -35 degrees.

[rjbibeau]

only way to tell if the belt broke is to take off the valver cover and see if the cams move...do that first to rule out an issue with spark or fuel.

[bccentaur3]

How would it be a spark or fuel related issue? My car ran perfectly prior to this disaster.

[Hanyo]

doesn't sound like a broken timing belt. sounds more like a broken alternator belt..... ?

[bccentaur3]

You're kidding right? I havent even checked the alternator belt. What an idiot. Ill be back.

[bccentaur3]

WOW. I should've known better than that. The alternator belt is still good. Thanks a lot man. You had me running out side in -35 degrees.

[Bitter]

could be a fuel pump that just went bad as well.

[Supersprynt]

Doesn't sound like a timing belt, your motor would be making horrible noises if it snapped.

[bccentaur3]

hmmm. No horrible noise at all. I I peaked into the timing belt cover and it looked like my belt has slidded off the teeth of the cams a little.

[hurley97]

as far as I know a loss in power is not really a symptom of the timing belt breaking, usually the car will just die and not start again (it won't make horrible noises).

although it sounds like your "loss of power" was pretty much due to going 10mph in 4th gear.

This post has been edited by hurley97: Jan 29, 2008 - 9:44 PM

[bccentaur3]

How should I trouble shoot this guys? Its very hard to work on my car in this weather and I can't really drive my e30 because the blower motors gone.

[hurley97]

how many miles on the car? when was the timing belt done last?

[bccentaur3]

208,xxx. I don't even know when the timing belt was last changed.

After the car shut on me, it won't crank over. Oh btw the car like slowly lost power and died, like running out of gas, but I didn't run out of gas.

[Supersprynt]

If it broke you'd lose power immediately. And I'm fairly certain you'd hear the motor knock pretty badly before it died. Those would the be horrible noises.

[bccentaur3]

See the thing is, I didn't here a noise at all. Just a sudden loss of power.

[Supersprynt]

Well your saying a sudden loss of power and a slow decrease in power, which is it?

With that temperature maybe you have frozen water in your fuel lines, put some dry gas in see if that helps.

[hurley97]

208,xxx. I don't even know when the timing belt was last changed.

After the car shut on me, it won't crank over. Oh btw the car like slowly lost power and died, like running out of gas, but I didn't run out of gas.

then you should probably change the timing belt anyway. hopefully it is broken when you get in there, then you know for sure that was the problem.

and Erik, yes you would lose power immediately but it won't knock really bad or anything, it would pretty much just act like it stalled.

[bccentaur3]

Well it all happened soo fast. I was in 4th noticed that my car wasn't getting any power then dropped gear and then it started stuttering and then just died.

I'll try the dry gas tomorrow. I don;t think any auto parts store is open right now.

how would i get water in the fuel lines any way?

[Supersprynt]

and Erik, yes you would lose power immediately but it won't knock really bad or anything, it would pretty much just act like it stalled.

It may be an interference vs. non-interference motor thing.

Def. can be the belt, cold temps don't help - get in there and check. I think there's way to do it via rotating the distributor but I'm not sur ehow.

[bccentaur3]

Would someone find out how for me?