When this occurs is engine failure immenant or will the drive train just shut down? Thanks.

Rick

 

depends on how many horseshoes u have up ur ***

90% of the time due to it being an interference engine pistons and valves give each other a lil kissie

sometimes u get lucky, like my friend, but unless upull the head or slap on a new belt u wont know.

 

Thanks for the reply. I plan on pulling the plugs and shining a light in the combustion chamber and take a lookie. Time to cross my fingers I guess...

 

i have heard of ppl getting lucky and the valves still being ok after a timing belt failure. especially if you put the car out of gear soon enough. but bent valves certainly is a possiblity.

just do a compression test. (with a good timing belt back on!)

 

The timing belt broke on my CRX and everything turned out to be okay. I put on a new belt and water pump, turned the key and she started right up. However, I was coasting about 30mph down a hill, and turned the key off and pulled over as soon as I lost power. It may be different if you were doing a 120mph pull down the highway

 

Speed has nothing to do with the valves bending.

It's how much the engine spun after the belt snap. Especially if a valve was at full extension and it snapped, and say you were at 6400rpm under load (you can do this is first gear) then yes, more then likely you have bent valves.

But at 2000rpm crusing when it snapped, and right away you clutched in, then you have chances everything is ok!

Just tell me you didn't try to start it up right away.