Fiat 500 1.2-non start after cambelt replacement

Fiat 500 1.2-non start after cambelt replacement

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itcaptainslow

Original Poster:

3,703 posts

137 months

Sunday 20th January 2019
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Bit of a pride basher this one.

Fitted a cambelt kit to a 1.2 500 equipped with VVT. Locked it up using the crank and camshaft locking tools bought online, followed the instructions that came with the Gates kit to the letter. Rebuilt everything, and now the bugger won’t start.

It appears we have no spark-it however is getting a crank signal. My code reader isn’t advanced enough to find a cam signal unfortunately. No fault codes stored. I’m positive the timing is correct as it has compression, I checked the tools refitted and locked numerous times and it turns over by hand fine. It just churns and churns on the starter but doesn’t fire.

Everything I can see has been reconnected OK. The crank pulley is correctly mounted on the “pip” for the correct position.

Any ideas peeps before I concede defeat and get it dragged to a garage/Fiat dealer with my tail between my legs?

E-bmw

9,240 posts

153 months

Sunday 20th January 2019
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Well it is likely to be something undone/dislodged etc & not back correctly, so go over it again & again closer.

lukecookie88

1 posts

46 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
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did you manage to find out what the problem was ?

itcaptainslow

Original Poster:

3,703 posts

137 months

Thursday 9th July 2020
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Haha, yes, I did. Painful memories...

When I first changed the belt I marked everything up with Tippex. Changed the belt, engine started on the button and ran beautifully, it just had a EML light on for cam/crank correlation.

There’s me thinking I’ve got the timing a tooth out, so I sourced a set of timing tools (from eBay, there’s my mistake #1), stripped everything apart and according to the tools, the timing was miles out...built everything back up, and the bugger wouldn’t start whatsoever.

Turns out the timing tools I’d bought were crap and poorly made; I’d therefore kissed and bent a few valves!

After all that, and getting it sorted with the assistance of my friendly local garage-they said I’d done it right the first time, and the EML coming on was due to the parameters just needing to be reset after the belt change.

Fuming/gutted? Just a tad!

That car stopped me doing “favour” jobs for friends (nothing against the pal who asked me to do the job of course) and also working on cars that I didn’t have much inside knowledge of (my area of expertise is MG Rover products).