It would take a meteor strike to force anything into the engine from the gearbox, its a shame you didnt ask before getting the gearbox replaced. Sounds like a valve has stuck/snapped and the rapid "tap/tapping" is the piston hitting the valve as it makes its way up the cylinder.

Taking the head off is the first thing I as an ex mechanic would have done. Unfortunately I think they have seen you coming.

Ask for your old gearbox back, there is probably nothing wrong with it and unless you got money off the new one due to your old one getting sent off for refurbishment the gearbox is legally still yours. Selling a good gearbox on might recoup a bit of cash for you.

If you know anyone who is comfortable with taking the head off the engine that would be the proof, it would be plain to see. Getting a valve replaced in a head that's already off is not much money at all, you just have to pray that there is no other knock on damage. Playing about with the valves requires a certain amount of OCD everything in its right place, in the place it came out of, however its the camshaft that controls the valves so as long as the cam shaft is timed then in the first revolution of the camshaft the valves will time themselves. Dont be afraid of taking the head off to just look, you wont hurt anything so long as the engine is timed which is an easy thing when you know how.

With reconditioned engines you have to assume the "re-conditioner" has used good quality parts, only takes 1 second hand valve knocking about the workshop to get thrown in and it becomes the weak point in the engine.

 

she did ask marine babe - http://forums.mg-rover.org/showthread.php?t=442064&page=2

but unfortunately without pics and a more detailed description i think a lot of the folk on here weren't too happy making a diagnosis

I know just enough to get me by with my TF so i can't offer any advice babe but i do feel for you and I hope you get it sorted soon *hug* x

 

Thanks - you have confirmed what I thought.
I am no mechanic but as an MG owner you become aware pretty quickly!
The problem I now have is that the mechanic is someone I have used for years and does jobs cheaply for me even though hes not the fastest on the planet.
I cant afford to pay him straight away so I dont want to upset him (if you know what I mean).
If something has broken in the engine whats the chance of getting it working properly again? I do trust him but if he has made a mistake hes not going to admit it.

 

If it is just a valve then it is pretty easy, but it is difficult to say without knowing exactly what is wrong.

I'm sorry I missed your original thread. There is no way that anything from the gearbox could end up in the engine as they are seperate units. Not even oil can (should) leak between the 2.

Have you tried giving one of the travelling mechanics (Russel, Jon or Dave) a call? I would trust them more than a garage and it shouldn't be anywhere near £1000.

 

If I had quoted it being the gearbox, changed the gearbox and it didnt solve the problem I would expect the customer to challenge my diagnosis and tell me to put the old gearbox back on and find the real problem.

Dont feel sorry for him, he's trained to work on engines and sometimes gets it wrong, you shouldn't be held accountable for his error.

Tell him to fix the original problem as all he's done is change a gearbox that wasn't required. An dont pay ANY more money, until you've got your money's worth from the first lot of money you paid him.

 

I hear what you're all saying and I agree with you all.
The car is unrecognisable at the moment as it is completly dismanteld so I cant move it - short of calling him a liar what else can I do? Hes not actually admitting that it was'nt the gearbox - just that the gearbox has caused "other problems"

 

Why dont you let your mechanic read what has been posted on this forum, and then see how he feels about his original diagnosis.
Like CJJ and others have said, there is absolutely no way parts from the gear box,small bits of sheared metal etc can get in the engine,if he has told you that then he doesn't know what he's talking about(and i am being generous there).

Personally i think if he swapped the box out, and the car was doing the same thing, he should have held his had up and admitted it was the wrong diagnosis, not sugggest the gearbox has caused a valve to snap.

 

I havent paid him any money yet and he is aware of my current situation at the moment.
They way he is talking is that ALL the valves are damaged - is that possible?

 

The way he's talking Im surprised you're still listening!

In order for every valve to be damaged the cam belt would have had to snap at speed and in gear, forcing every piston up and down whilst valves are randomly moving in and out.

I believe he has little to no experience with these engines and by the sounds of it I wouldn't trust him with my engine as I have a feeling he wouldn't be beyond damaging parts himself just to get the extra work.

Get everything original put back and take your car home, threaten office of fair trade action and then get one of the mobile mechanics that are on here to come have a look.

 

+1 to the above... maybe take some "heavy's" with you, if you have two male friends and or hubby or son or something, i know what it's like telling a "friendly" mechanic that they have no idea when you're a woman and on you're own, i didn't need help but it would have been nice to know someone else was there... x

 

Thanks for all your posts.
I have decided to tell him to put it back together as it was and I'm going to get Russell to look at it.
Hubby is going up there now to tell him - just hope he doesnt say hes already done the work!

 

Unless you agreed for him to do the work then he was working at his own risk.

 

Just had a row with him on the phone.
This is exactly what he said was wrong
"the gearbox seized up which in turn snapped a pin inside the cam shaft"
He says he has gone too far with the repair just to put it back together again.
We had a barney but I have left it that he finishes the job and I will pay a bit each week until the cars sold and I'll then pay the difference.

Anyone want to buy an MG?!!

 

Surely he can't say he's gone to far to stop now!? it's your car! he should just say OK, i'll bill you for the time he's spent on it.. and putting it back together?

i might be wrong but i'm pretty sure he can't just "make" you use him for the repairs!?

 

Wouldn't the engine just stall if the gearbox seized :dunno:

 

No garage should just carry out work without your say so.

 

Exactly, seems you've been taken for an awful ride

If I was you id be considering legal action, unless you specifically told him to carry on with the work then he shouldn't be and certainly shouldn't be charging you for his mistakes!

 

Amazing how quickly the "friendly mechanic" turns when you know what your talking about. You owe him nothing, sounds like he might have damaged your engine or gearbox. Try to get someone qualified to go take a look at this seized gearbox and broken "pin" inside the camshaft (I have no idea what he means here but sounds like it was something in the head that broke in the first place and he's trying to link the two together).

 

He did show my husband the broken pin?? I am not convinced that it was just the gearbox.
When the car originally went wrong I was on the driveway so I didnt move the car at all.
He came up and tried to drive it up to the garage - I think he did the damage then as it wouldnt drive at all when he took it.
TBH I am sick of it - all I want is my car back and then I can decide what to do with it

 

Pin, its got to be the cam belt tensor bolt surely, if so then it was your cam belt that snapped/gave way, surely, which is I guess the damage his fixing now, (ie bent valves etc)

Get hold of the old gearbox, and take it a different garage to get them to check it is "actually" seized, if not your are line for compensation.

 

This probably isn't the nicest of suggestions, however probably your best bet is...

1) Ring the guy and tell him to immediately stop all work on it,
2) Get the car trailered back to yours (and consider legal action),
3) Break it for parts to reclaim a very decent chunk of money,
4) Buy another TF; this is the best time of year and you will get another for not a huge amount of money.

I agree with the comments have posted above. Even if this guy does put it back together the odds of it being reliable now is very low; it's very clear that he just doesn't know what he's on about.... never a good thing when it comes to these cars engines.

 

As the engine is only 18 months old he would have changed the cam belt when he fitted the new engine - wouldnt he??
I'm starting to think it didnt need a new engine 18 months ago either!

 

Probably not.

We seem to keep hearing similar stories to this recently, gives good mechanics a bad name.

 

It's a bad do, but one i have heard before and not just in mechanics circle's.
The amount of people i know who have been robbed blind, by friendly mechanics, or people of other trades doing mates rates.

A friend of mine recently told me his neighbour had there living room ceiling plastered by a so called mate at a so called rate £600.
Said neighbour was some what miffed when she found out my friend had his front bedroom,upper landing and lower landing done for £300,and which was a considerably larger area.

I would definitely want to see this seized box, and seeing as its yours anyway get it collected and checked somewhere.
And it would be sensible to get it collected,whilst your there in his workshop, if you leave it unattended before collection, odds on friendly mechanic will attack it with a cold chisel,or add a good sprinkle of sheared of metal into the casing before its collected.

Might all be completely innocent and poor guys done nowt wrong, but sounds all a bit moody to me.

 

I would definitely want to see this seized box, and seeing as its yours anyway get it collected and checked somewhere.
And it would be sensible to get it collected,whilst your there in his workshop, if you leave it unattended before collection, odds on friendly mechanic will attack it with a cold chisel,or add a good sprinkle of sheared of metal into the casing before its collected.

I was thinking that too... arrive with a big bloke with no advanced notice.

 

I've never really heard of any F/TF gearboxes randomly seizing. Not saying it couldn't happen.

I had it happen on a Kawasaki when a circlip came loose allowing to gears to mesh at the same time, but I have never heard of it on the TF.

The only pin I can think of in the cam shaft is the roll pin on the timing gear. I cannot think why a seized gearbox would cause this to snap as the crankshaft drives the cams via a belt. If the gearbox seized, the crankshaft would just stop and the engine would stall. The cams wouldn't continue to move, so why would the pin snap. :dunno:

 

I've never really heard of any F/TF gearboxes randomly seizing. Not saying it couldn't happen.

I had it happen on a Kawasaki when a circlip came loose allowing to gears to mesh at the same time, but I have never heard of it on the TF.

The only pin I can think of in the cam shaft is the roll pin on the timing gear. I cannot think why a seized gearbox would cause this to snap as the crankshaft drives the cams via a belt. If the gearbox seized, the crankshaft would just stop and the engine would stall. The cams wouldn't continue to move, so why would the pin snap. :dunno:

I showed this thread to the Chain smoking Dwarf that is my mechanic, he is 65 and has been under cars since he was 13, his words were similar to CJJ's in as much as the drive sequence of the gearbox-crankshaft-belt-cams... He thought the mechanics theory was... well, let me censor this to polite English, a male cow's droppings.

His advice was to get the car home and challenge any claims the mechanic makes by getting the engine diagnosed now, by going backwards according to the mechanics claim, as in, if the cams are damaged so is the cam belt, if this is damaged so the crankshaft is to blame, if this is damaged then the connection to the gear box is damaged and so on and so forth till you discover which end was shot....

Take the car home, have it diagnosed by Saint Russel and claim in small claims court...

 

+1 for what CJJ said, you would imagine if gearbox did cease then everything in the engine would stop in its halted position, why indeed if cams/valves are belt driven would they carry on moving and hit a piston?

My worry would be that if this chap is as bent as he sounds, he has probably already sold your old gearbox on via ebay.

Why did your original engine get replaced by this chap?

I would definitely suggest you give this guy a link to this thread, let him read it on his garage or home pc, and let him have a rethink of his customer service approach.

 

Just a thought CJJ and other mechanically minded boffs, could the big end ceasing suddenly/instantaneously.
Cause excess tension to be rapidly applied to the timing belt, and due to the inertia of the cams at whatever rpm the belt may then snap, followed by sad valve syndrome ????


Of course if our friend hasn't got a snapped timing belt.......

 

If the cams were in someway subjected to inertia, but they aren't.

If the cams had locked up then the crankshaft would continue to turn for a short while, but not the other way around. The cams just don't spin by themselves, they would just stop as soon as the crank stopped as it is the crank that turns the cams.

 

Not strictly true, there would certainly be momentum of the cams and the pulleys acting as a flywheel... I get the point is the momentum would be trivial compared to normal operational forces though.

 

When my MGF stopped suddenly in reverse it turned out that the clutch had broken up. I cannot see how anything from the gearbox can get in the engine since they are seperate. The gearbox seizing and making the cams go is pretty much a no no too. Did the engine make a noise when it was just running and not trying to drive it?
Is this mechanic running a business? It is possible he has done nothing wrong but on the evidence shown here it looks like he has a few questions to answer. Plus parts to show where he got his theory from.