1990 eclipse lifter broken? engine blown
 

Hi I wonder if anybody can share their thoughts on this.
I have a 1990 eclipse gs 2.0 non turbo.

The water pump was failing so I bought a timing belt kit (includes tensioners) and water pump and brought it to a shop my friend recommended.

They changed timing belt / balance shaft belt/ tensioners / water pump etc.

It ran good for about 1 week, then i heard a "knock" and then the lifters seemed to be clacking loudly.

I had the car towed back to the shop, didnt want to risk driving it more, thinking something was wrong with the job they did possibly.
Their diagnosis was 'bad lifters', so they recommended buying and installing 16 new lifters.

I did so, this time though, I sensed a kind of out of balance or "pulsing" in the car, drivable but you could tell it wasnt the same.

drove tha car about 3 weeks, then the engine just died on me while I was driving.

pulled the valve cover and found a "broken lifter", not only that it seems my pistons are shot (at least 1) and the #1 spark plug wouldnt come up, when I finally pulled the plug, there was damage in the spark plug chamber, like something "hit" against the spark plug end inside the engine.

Now, of couse my engine is shot.

That sucks because I put a lot of time. money and effort in trying to get the thing right, the water pump failure basically forced me to change it while I was at it, I though it made sense to put the new timing etc...

Any ideas as to what happened?
shoddy job?
I find it hard to believe the work I had done and the fact my engine is now shot shortly after the work was done are not related somehow.

Thanks.

have you taken the head off to see what kind of damage was
done?

I hate this site…when it times me out while I am typing and I loose everything..

elherron, good suggestion. I always have had the theory that I probably can’t break it more if it actually is broken so take it apart. (But sometimes you can break more things if you don’t have a clue what you are doing.)

V0520gva, It could be related to the shops work.....or could be coincidence. I’d be leaning toward it being related to the shops work. But before I go there and say it is the shop, could you clarify what you said as I do not clearly understand what you wrote. A broken lifter (???) the #1 spark plug wouldn’t come up (?????) and there was damage in the spark plug chamber(???).
Please clarify for me, what you meant when you ‘found a “broken lifter”’, the #1 spark plug wouldn’t come up and there was damage in the spark plug chamber. I know what a combustion chamber is, but what is a spark plug chamber and there was damage there like something “hit” against the spark plug end inside the engine. Do you mean that the ground electrode of the spark plug is damaged or bent or missing?

Thanks

line up the timing marks before you remove anything .... sounds like the timing is off

His original post, was a red herring to me as I was focusing on the part about the "broken lifter" and such.

I agree with you, if the engine suddenly dies and he had recent timing belt work done, that would be the place to start. My wife was driving the car when it had about 70K miles and it died when she came to a stop. The belt had lost some teeth and jumped, with the usual consequences but only bent valves as the car was at a stop sign.

Hopefully he (I assume a male) has the knowledge and experience to check the timing. (And not turn the crank the wrong way in the process.)