When your engine oil warning light comes on most people just think the “the engine just needs a bit of oil!” but in some cases it can be a little more serious.
Imagine somebody restricting the the blood flow around your body and how that will affect your performance?
The same goes for your cars engine, if you restrict its oil flow you are causing un-necessary wear and stress on its moving parts!
In the case of any Wetbelt failure what happens is the rubber debris from the Wetbelt collects in the oil and gets sucked up by the oil pump and trapped in the oil pump strainer – watch the video to see what we mean.
Over time the oil pump strainer starts to become blocked causing less oil to be pumped around the engine and the oil pressure to drop.
Most cases the oil warning light does exactly what its supposed to do and warn you before its to late.
That was the case for this Citroen DS3, we got to it just in time before the belt failed completely.
The owner of this car has kept up with its service schedule as required (with another Garage) so all we can suspect is that the wrong oil has been used as it only has 53,000 miles on it.
We are seeing more and more wetbelt problems across a range of different manufacturers, this time it was Vauxhall with its 1.2 litre 3 cylinder turbo engine (Peugeot engine).
This Vauxhall Grandland X came in with its oil warning light on and had low oil pressure.
When draining the oil on the engine it became apparent that the wetbelt had degraded quite seriously as large slithers of rubber were coming out with the oil.
Vauxhall Grandland X 1.2 litre 3 cylinder Wetbelt replacement.
Once we had drained the oil we removed the sump to access the the oil pump, the oil pump pick up was full of rubber debris which was blocking the pump and causing the low oil pressure light to come on.
Luckily in this case the customer stopped driving the car and booked in as soon as the light came on, they had it recovered to the garage instead of driving it (which could have lead to serious engine damage).
After cleaning out the oil pump and pick up we stripped the engine and replaced the degraded wetbelt and tensioner, gave it some fresh oil and a new filter and fired her up, she purred like a kitten.
If you watch the video you can see the cracking in the wetbelt suggesting it wouldn’t be long before it would fail causing serious engine failure.
Specific oil must be used in engines running wetbelts, the oil has additives in it which help prolong the life of the wetbelt and reduce the chance of premature degradation and failure.
We advise regular oil changes to help reduce the premature wear of your belt and help reduce the chance of blocking the oil pump, we suggest at least every 10,000 miles or once a year and to make sure the correct oil is used.
This Fiesta was recovered into us with its oil warning lamp on and a horrendous noise coming from its engine.
Once we had stripped the engine we could see the cause of the noise, the inlet cam pulley had been starved of oil which was allowing excessive free play (variable timing pulley) which as you can imagine is not great when the engine is running!
The cause of the oil starvation was quiet apparent when looking at the oil pump pick up, it was completely blocked with rubber debris from the failing wet belt.
The customer was very honest with us and admitted she had not had the car serviced regularly which would of allowed some of the rubber to be cleaned out with an oil change instead of blocking the oil pump.
This Ford Fiesta 1.0 EcoBoost was brought into us with its oil pressure warning light on and its engine sounding a bit noisier than it should.
After stripping the engine our previous guesses turned out to be correct, the wetbelt had been degrading (as they do over time) leaving deposits of rubber in the oil which were being sucked into the oil pump pick up and causing it to block subsequently causing low oil pressure.
OIL PICK UP FULL OF RUBBER
If this problem is left to long it can cause serious engine damage as it is starving the engine of its lubrication.
On this EcoBoost engine we replaced its wetbelt kit and oil pump belt and also decided it would be a good idea to replace the oil pump itself rather than clean out the pick up (as it was so bad).
Once the job was completed it was time to see if the repair had worked and turn the engine over on the key!!
Success, the engine started, oil warning light went out and it purred like a kitten.
WETBELT DEGRADED AND SPLITTING
We think the biggest issue with this particular engine was caused by a lack of servicing, we know the wetbelts degrade over time leaving rubber deposits in the oil but with regular oil changes most of those deposits would be removed from the engine and not be allowed to block the oil pick up.
This Ford Transit EcoBlue was recovered into us with a very hard brake pedal and no brakes which sounded like a brake servo fault.
To test the brake servo we removed the vacuum feed to it to see if it was holding pressure but instantly found out that there was no vacuum to it.
Tracing the vacuum pipe back checking for leaks or breakages to the vacuum pump we found no vacuum at all.
After removing and stripping the vacuum pump we could see the plastic internals of the pump had broken up into several pieces.
Vacuum pump
We replaced the vacuum pump and carried out a road test, everything seemed OK so we handed the van back to its customer.
Unfortunately the customer only managed about 60 miles before the exact same fault occurred again.
Once the van was back with us we removed the new (genuine Ford) vacuum pump to find it had broken up exactly the same as before.
We carried out an oil pressure test on the van and check for oil pressure up to the vacuum pump which all seemed OK.
After speaking to Ford technical services we were told this is know a known problem by Ford and is caused by ‘wet belt degradation‘, bassicaly the wetbelt is breaking up and the small parts off rubber are blocking oil ways and pick ups and intermitantly starving parts of the engine of oil, the main one being the vacuum pump.
The Fix
Even though this van has only covered 90,000 miles and is a 2017 and Ford recommend the wetbelt to be replaced at 144,000 or 10 years they are now saying they will not cover the warranty of the vacuum pump unless the wetbelt is replaced at the same time.
Rubber deposits
The first thing we did was to remove the sump to access the oil pump and check for the rubber deposits, we were amazed at what we found, we have been replacing the wetbelts on the Transit EcoBlue and EcoBoost engines for quite some time now but have not seen deposits like this before.
After removing all parts required to carry out the wetbelt and oil pump belt replacement we had to vigorously wash out all accessible galleries, pipes and engine internals.
Wetbelt
We replaced the wetbelt kit, oil pump belt, front cover and sump then ran the engine up to see if we still had good oil pressure, which we did.
it is not recommended to use oil flushes with engines that run wetbelts as this can also damage the belt so we ran the engine for 60 miles and drained the oil again to get as much debris out as we could.
Warning!!
If you have a Ford Transit EcoBlue or a Ford car using the EcoBoost engine make sure to keep on top of the servicing and use the correct oil, if you have brought one recently and have no service history get the wetbelt replaced as the consequences are very expensive compared to replacing the belts.
Ignore Fords recommended change interval and aim for 8 years or 80,000 miles, and even if you are not doing massive miles every year still at least have your oil and filter replaced as a preventative measure.
This little Peugeot 208 1.2 vti was booked in to have its wet belt replaced due to another garage noticing rubber in the oil when it was serviced.
”Make sure to use vehicle specific oil when Servicing”
Once we had stripped down the engine to access the wetbelt we had to fit the timing tools to the camshafts and flywheel.
Camshaft Timing Tool
When we removed the wetbelt you could clearly see its poor condition and by gently pinching the belt see the cracks.
Cracked Wetbelt
After replacing the wetbelt kit on any vehicle it is good practice to clean out the oil pump pick up due to the rubber debris blocking it and causing oil pressure issues.
Make sure to use the specific oil for the car due to their additives which help prevent premature belt wear.
The Ford 1.0 EcoBoost engine fitted to the Fiesta, Focus, B Max and some Ford Connect vans is ran by a wet belt (runs inside the engine) and Ford recommend it should be replaced at 150,000 miles or 10 years.
This Fiesta was 8 years old and had only done 80,000 miles and you can see by the pictures the condition of the belt and the debris inside the oil pump pick up caused by the failing belt.
Wetbelt cracked and ready to fail
Replacing the wetbelt and oil pump belt is a time consuming job, you have to remove about 90% of the engines ancillaries to be able to access the wet belt and to be able to fit the timing kit which ensures the new belt goes on in exactly the right place.
Wetbelt strip down process
Remove coil packs, fuel rail and rocker cover
Remove AC compressor, AC pipes, alternator and catalytic converter
Drain engine oil, drain coolant, remove drive shaft, starter motor and sump
Remove water pump and aux belt tensioner
Rotate engine to TDC and fit crank timing tools and flywheel locking tool
Fit camshaft timing tools
Remove crank pulley using a Torque Multiplier
Remove front engine cover
Remove wetbelt, oil pump belt and oil pump and inspect
Torque Multiplier
Normally we can just clean out the oil pump pick up but in this case we decided it would be a good idea to replace the oil pump whilst it was stripped down because it was so bad.
Belt debris inside oil pump pick up
There are several other seals and washers we replace when rebuilding the engine such as the block to front cover seal behind the water pump and the crank bolt friction washer (Ford advise fitting this due to early problems of crank slip).
New belt kit and oil pump fitted
Wetbelts are becoming a big problem in all makes and models of vehicles and we advise you get yours replaced well before the recommended interval to reduce the chance of failure.
Our customer brought his Ford Transit Custom to us with the clutch pedal a lot higher than it should be but the biting point was still ok?
A lot of cars and vans have a ‘stop’ for the clutch pedal in the form of a bracket or a rubber but in the case of the Transit Custom it is built into the Clutch Master Cylinder itself.
Once we had removed the Master Cylinder we could see that the operating arm inside had broken allowing the return spring to make the pedal sit high.
Clutch Master Cylinder
When we replaced the clutch master cylinder and bled the hydraulic system we could see the pedal was now sitting in its correct position and felt a lot more natural to drive.
This Ford Transit 2.0 EcoBlue TDCI came into us with a complaint of excessive oil leaks, high crankcase pressure and intermittent white smoking.
When you removed the oil filler cap there was an excessive amount of pressure and white smoke coming from inside the rocker cover and also from the breather pipe going to the inlet pipe.
On this Puma engine to be able to remove the rocker cover you must first remove the diesel injectors and when we did the problem became apparent.
what had been happening was that the injector to cylinder head copper sealing washers had failed and was allowing the combustion gases to enter the engine which was causing the high crankcase pressure.
Injector blowing past copper sealing washer
The high crankcase pressure is also what we believe was causing all the oil leaks on the engine, the engine was trying to find the easiest way to relieve the pressure, either a weak seal or weak gasket would allow the engine to release pressure and oil hence ‘oil leak’
How to resolve the issue.
With the injectors removed we removed the old copper seals and cleaned the body of the injectors using a wire wheel, making sure not to touch the tip of the injector as modern injector nozzle holes are so fine any attempt to clean them normally causes damage.
Using an injector seat cutting tool we cleaned the sealing base of the injector and also cleaned the injector holes in the cylinder head making sure to blow out any excess aluminium that the cutting tool may have left in the injector holes.
Injector seat cutting tool
Using a new rocker cover gasket and injector sealing washers (copper) we refitted the injectors making sure to also replace the injector clamp bolts as they are a one time use stretch bolt that require torquing to a specific setting when fitted.
Once rebuilt we started the engine and gave it a few minutes to settle due to having the injectors removed, and instantly we could see by removing the oil filler cap that there was now very little crankcase pressure and no sign of white smoke.
After a long road test the vehicle was returned to the garage to have a final check over for any signs of leaks and for an oil and filter change as the oil would have been contaminated with diesel and carbon deposits from the injectors which had been blowing past and then returned to its owner.
This Peugeot Boxer had a serious engine noise and an engine management light on when it came to us for Service.
Firstly we had to diagnose whether it was from the engine internals or auxiliary items such as air con compressor water pump etc.
Once we had determined it was indeed from the engine we needed to strip down to find out what was causing the noise
After removing the timing chain cover it became pretty obvious what was causing the noise, the chain had stretched so much that the adjuster was fully out and the chain was still loose.
Peugeot Boxer Timing Chain Stretched
After removing the chain we compared it to the new chain and it was a full link longer, the teeth on the crank gear had become rounded and all the chain guides were starting to break apart (debris in the sump).
When we fitted the timing tool to the engine prior to removing the chain we could see that the stretched chain had allowed the timing of the engine to be out by a full tooth.
With the new timing chain kit fitted to the engine and all debris removed we treated the engine to a new oil filter and some fresh oil and gave the key a turn.
The difference was night and day, the engine ran smooth with no worrying clattering and rattling just ticking over like it should.
A quick code scan with our diagnostic machine tells us that all the fault codes relating to the stretched timing chain have gone.
Time for a good road test, final check and hand back to the customer.
