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 was recovered into us after breaking down on the M5, the customer said he suddenly lost all power and pulled into a laybuy.
After a quick investigation it was very apparent that the van had no compression and we suspected the wet belt had failed causing the crank shaft to keep turning without the cam shafts which has caused internal damage.
We removed the front end of the van including head lamps, radiator and bumper to allow easy access to the wet belt cover.
Once we removed the cover we could see that the wet belt had indeed failed, several teeth were missing from the belt which had allowed the crank and cam shafts to turn separately and caused piston and valve contact.
Check your timing belt history! We recommend 80,000 miles or 8 years.
Teeth missing from wet belt
With a quick inspection of the damaged parts we decided it would be cheaper for the customer to fit a reconditioned engine than for us to repair his damaged engine.
Ford are aware of the premature failure of their Wet Belts which on this model were due at 150,000 miles or 10 years but as far as we are aware they are offering no help if the vehicle is out of warranty.
When the new engine arrived we started swapping all auxiliary parts from the old engine to the new engine carefully inspecting for damage or wear in the process, all gaskets and seals were replaced at the same time.
Reconditioned engine from Ford
With the engine and gearbox built up it was time to refit them into the van and get to a stage where we can run the engine and test for any leaks or blows before refitting the front end.
Starting an engine after such a big job is always an intense feeling no matter how confident you are, but after checking and double checking we were happy with our work and we turned the key…….. and voila, life.
We left the engine running for some time to allow the oil and coolant to get up to temperature and so we could check for any problems.
All good so time to refit the front end and road test, after the road test we recheck all levels and hand back to the customer.
The Ford Transit is probably one of the most common vans seen on the road today and is championed by tradesmen and delivery drivers up and down the country.
With the latest edition to the Transit range the 2.0 EcoBlue TDCI you get a Timing Belt in replacement of the old Timing Chain which Ford recommend to be replaced at 150,000 miles or ten years.
What we are seeing in the trade though is timing belt failures well before either the 150,000 mile interval or the ten year time frame.
We are recommending customers to get theirs changed around 60,000 miles or five years to prevent the chance of failure and a hefty bill for un-necessary engine repairs caused by the failure.
