Re: alfa-digest V9 #437

[George Graves <gmgraves@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

YOU were lucky, That's all I can say. I've seen GTV-6's which broke 
their cam belts destroy more than half their valves and pistons and 
break connecting rods and damage crank bearing journals. You wanna take 
that chance?

George Graves
'86 GTV-6 3.0S



On Saturday, April 19, 2003, at 04:44 AM, alfa-digest wrote:


> Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 21:11:23 EDT
> From: Iopsycheng@domain.elided
> Subject: Re: alfa-digest V9 #429
>
> Dean and John,
> I've got a news flash for you two... I'm not defending the mechanic who
> claimed an Alfa spider jumped the timing chain but I can tell you from
> personal experience that losing the timing belt in a 2.5 liter GTV-6 
> at 6250
> RPM will NOT necessarily destroy the entire engine. At 53,000 miles I
> stripped 50% of the cogs off of the timing belt while charging up an 
> on ramp.
> I had just hit the rev limiter when the failure took place... The 
> engine died
> immediately. I tore the heads down and sent them off to Sperry for an
> upgrade. As a professional machinist I have access to any precision 
> measuring
> and testing equipment imaginable and I and a qualified NDT inspector. 
> The
> only damage to the engine was three bent intake valves and a minor 
> nick in
> the top of #4 piston. ALL other reciprocating and rotating parts were
> undamaged! I reassembled the engine using the original pistons, liners,
> pushrods, connecting rods and cam followers. Currently the engine has 
> over
> 100,000 miles and you can ask anyone in the Mid-Atlantic Alfa Club's
> Tidewater branch or Georgian Gaz and they will tell you my GTV-6 runs 
> just
> fine and will still turn to the limit any and every time I so desire. 
> It does
> now wear a mechanical belt tensioner and the belt gets swapped 
> yearly...
> Cheaper that way!
> Thomas Gonnella
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