Should I get rid..

[jonnyrobertz]

I've only recently become aware that my Camshaft lobes and/or tappets have nearly had it. My cars starting to tick and I'm having trouble pulling off, even if the engine's warm and I give it complete rev-death.

I've been quoted around 5-600 by a garage for a replacement. I'm not to knowledgeable on this area of the engine, so I wouldn't know which parts to salvage from a scrapyard. I've also been made aware that if I was to get the parts from a scrapyard myself, then I'd have to take them out of the same car bla, bla bla..

The car is a 1.4i 16v Astra LS which I picked up in January for 1,350 with problems, I've restored the car myself since and spent a fair whack on making sure it should be problem free for a while, but this problem is really pissing me off because I can't justify spending that much money on a car that I bought for so little.

Should I get rid of my car? I have been tempted for a while but I'm unsure wether I could sell it with the current problem. I've taken it to a trade dealer just to get a rough idea of what I could obtain quickly, if I needed to and to be honest, he offered my absolute fking peanuts for it. If so, does anyone have any advice on getting rid of it with this problem? It doesn't really affect the way the car drives, and they don't feel any worse than they did three months ago when the problem first started to develop. :/

[Efbe]

what year is the car?

[alfa pint]

Start putting some cash aside in a savings account and run it into the ground. Then buy a barge. It's not worth repairing.

[lost in espace]

2nd hand engine swap? Mind you the replacement could be dodgy!

[shouldbworking]

jonnyrobertz said:

My cars starting to tick and I'm having trouble pulling off.

Drive it till it dies.

As for the other problem.. well. The lounge is that way ->

[redchina]

alfa pint said:

Start putting some cash aside in a savings account and run it into the ground. Then buy a barge. It's not worth repairing.

Do this, but then go to the scrappy anyway (or get cheap parts somewhere else)
then rip the engine to bits and learn how to change a cam

if it all goes completely wrong, you still have scrap value of the car and possibly learnt something about engines.
(depends what value you place on learning mechanical things though and time you have available...)


Do please buy a barge though and post here what you bought

[Bill]

Efbe said:

what year is the car?

And how many miles has it done?

And how recently has it been serviced? I had a 16v Nissan that sounded rotten as the oil got near the end of its life, so I'd try an oil change and tappet adjust first and a head swap from a scrappy if that doesn't work.

[steveo3002]

dont even have to swap the head..get a pair of cams and tappets out of a scraper and mark the tappet positions

should be able to swap em over in an afternoon with a few spanners

[louismchuge]

It's not a huge job, get it done if you want to start getting your fingers dirty

Just make sure you've found TDC (top dead centre) and it should be a piece of cake

Or you could just drive it until it dies (which is what I'd probably do!)

[TonyRPH]

£600 sounds an awful for what is essentially a cylinder head overhaul + a new camshaft?

The Astra is OHC so surely no pushrods or followers required (I'm not familiar with the engine, but presume it has a pretty much standard 'bucket' and shim valve clearance setup?)