still stranded

[winnipeg sue]

Hello everyone. Some of you may remember my "stranded in Woodstock" post from late last August. My new (to me) Deli had blown its head cylinder. Result? A month later I traveled back to Woodstock, paid $5062 for a brand new cylinder plus various other tune-ups as recommended by Glen at Coombs County Auto (thanks, Glen).
Had a lovely drive west, at least for 1080 km, which got me to Wawa, ON, where I threw a rod right through the wall of the motor, or some such thing. Which, near as I can understand it so far, means that most of the work I had done is all for nought and I now need a whole new motor., AND that, since this was a "bottom end" failure and the first was a "top end", it is unlikely that my friend Andy in Woodstock did anything wrong, or that anything he did caused the second failure, so I'm unlikely to get any financial compensation at that end.

Eventually, I paid to have the thing towed back to Manitoba, where it has been sitting in a lot waiting for me to decide what to do, while mostly I've been trying to forget the whole thing, because, between buying the van, paying for the repairs, and the costs of emergency travel back and forth for myself, my kids and my dog, I'm now down over $18,000 with nothing to show for it except a dead van sitting in somebody's lot. Quite a bit more than a pensioner can afford.

But, this morning, I woke up thinking maybe I will try to find the extra $5K to put in a new/reconditioned motor. What do you think? Is it worth it? Where would I get a motor? How reliable am I likely to find a reconditioned/rebuilt (is there a difference?) motor? (How much bad luck can one person have?) Am I better off trying to sell it for parts? Cut my losses and run? Etc. etc. All advice much appreciated.

Broke,
Susan

[MardyDelica]

hi, susan, i dont know what to say, very hard.in fact, why you need to change it with new head. mostly delica dont need new head as the cooling system for delica & pajero is good.
the only problem when delica cyl head go its just because of the clog radiator , broken hose or lack of antifreeze. mostly the engine of this delica is much better than toyota. i was wondering the amount of money you spend before you can change the the whole engine for that price,no need for new head.
its cheaper to buy the whole engine & installed. but cannot commnent on this as its you & your mechanic personal decision to do just change the head instead of the whole engine. its unfortunately this thing happen as its a bit costly for you now.
its a very hard decision to deal with.
hope you well.
Cheers;

[jessef]

The cost to have the motor rebuilt is probably comparable to two used engines depending on the labour cost.

Both are labour intensive, so really it will come down to money and how much labour you would be charged.

Your options would be to buy a used engine with low mileage (80-200 km's) and have it installed.

Or buy a used engine with high mileage (200-300+ km's)and have it rebuilt.

Personally, I would opt for the latter.

[jaggedfish]

Hi Susan,

That is a very unfortunate story and I feel for you with your string of poor luck. It's hard to know where to draw the line when putting money into a vehicle, especially when it comes to a catastrophic failure such as that. If you were to proceed with keeping your van and repairing it, I would suggest that replacing the engine with another would cost less in labour provided you had some level of reassurance the motor was reliable - diesels typically last a long time if looked after. Once the engine block has been damaged, it's pretty much just a boat anchor - not to say the whole thing is wasted tho. First, you have to find a replacement...

Glen was very helpful with me and he does send parts all over the place (even long distances) so he could probably offer some good advice. I know he has a ton of parts available and it may be worth investing in the shipping of an engine versus repairing (ie new block) what sounds like a lemon. It's a bit of a conundrum tho as a repaired engine would be brand new anyway as you have looked after the top end already. Hmmm....

The other side is perhaps your old engine could be offered up as an exchange to help offset the cost of the new engine (perhaps) as it does have some new parts on it plus some other usable parts. Not sure on that - sounds good in theory.

Not very helpful perhaps, but I wish you the best of luck on this and hope the future holds better experiences for you.
Ian

[jessef]

repaired engine would be brand new anyway as you have looked after the top end already.

Agreed. You may be able to salvage quite a bit from the old engine. Will depend on damage.

[Green1]

a couple things... do they SUSPECT you threw a rod? or do they KNOW you through a rod?

my delica had all the symptoms of that same problem, and everyone suspected a thrown rod, however it turned out to be a broken valve (fell in to the cylinder)

If it is a broken valve, then it was most likely caused by the timing being out when the engine was re-assembled after the head replacement (ie. go after the mechanic who did the work!)

I've had this exact problem on mine, the shop that did my first head replacement put a pulley on backwards on the timing belt and as a result the timing was out slightly, it drove for nearly 20,000km before the valve finally snapped off in the engine.

[loki]

repaired engine would be brand new anyway as you have looked after the top end already.

Agreed. You may be able to salvage quite a bit from the old engine. Will depend on damage.

I personally am wary of salvaging parts from an old damaged engine, I put a new engine in my truck back in highschool (after the old one threw a piston into the cylinder wall and cracked the block) and less than a year later the same thing happened again. It turned out that one of the very few, and seemingly unimportant parts, that where reused from the first engine cause the problem, it was the pulley (balancer) that is mounted on the the front of the crankshaft and runs all the belts was not balanced and was caused the crankshaft to worbble about and eventually angled a piston ans threw it into the wall :(. so a $20 part destroyed a brand new short block that I put a totally rebuild head onto, I called the wreckers and they didn't charge me for taking away :(. Sorry for rambling on, I would opt for a rebuilt engine from Glen at ccautos if it is an option.

[jessef]

That would depend.

If the head is brand new and a valve or bottom end bearing needed replacing, which the head is worn in but still like new then why replace it ?

It will come down to the teardown/inspection to see if any parts are reusable if that's the course she would take.

Regardless, there are more than option out there.

[loki]

That would depend.

If the head is brand new and a valve or bottom end bearing needed replacing, which the head is worn in but still like new then why replace it ?

It will come down to the teardown/inspection to see if any parts are reusable if that's the course she would take.

Regardless, there are more than option out there.

I'm not saying that she shouldn't reuse the parts, just that she should be careful and not assume something is fine even if it looks good, the pulley on my truck looked fine to me and my mechanic friend at the time too :(. Just injecting a little caution, better safe than sorry eh? :)

[DelicaMark]

If you decided to stick with this van and fix it. I would seriously look into how much it would cost to ship it out to either Coombs Country Auto on Vancouver Island or CVI in Richmond. Maybe putting it onto a train or something like that. I would bet that you would break even, or do better, on the total cost by shipping it to someone who knows these vans inside and out rather than having someone in Manitoba fix it. The fellow in Manitoba may be doing something wrong caused by a lack of knowledge of these vans.

Good Luck!

-Mark

[Grungle]

I'm sorry this post isn't much help to you, but was it you we saw in Ontario waiting for the ferry a few months ago? We had a quick chat before the ferry left? It think we were headed to the Bruce Peninsula?

Sorry to hear of your problems. We got as far as California before we struck serious Delica trouble...it took us 3 weeks to get fixed but we made it back to Vancouver today.

Best of luck with everything.

[winnipeg sue]

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts so far. Turns out there's even more to consider than I knew!
I'm pretty sure they showed me the piston that had gone through the wall of the motor, but it's also true that major diagnostic work hasn't been done yet. I also thought that a certain bolt at the top looked sheared off the same as it had been the first time, suggesting that maybe it was, yet again, a timing belt problem.
It is true that there doesn't seem to be anybody in Manitoba with much experience with the Deli, but it's also the case that it cost $700 to get the van from Wawa in Northwestern Ontario to Winnipeg, so another shipping of it would be at least that much more. A tempting idea, though, and one I hadn't considered. I'm also worried, though, because clearly traveling to BC everytime there's a problem isn't going to work, so maybe it's not such a good plan to have one here. The numbers grow all the time, though--we've spotted a couple more in our neighbourhood in the last while. And then there's the experience of the last poster who, it sounds like, had major problems in California and had trouble getting service. Hmm--what to do, what to do?
Yep, that was us on the ferry--the kids still talk about this as one of the more amazing experiences of our month-long trip: That we pulled up into our lane for the ferry and passed a Delica waiting for the same boat. What are the chances? Curiously, I also passed a Deli at a lookout over Lake Superior in late September, about 10 minutes before the second catastrophic failure. It's one of those "could-have-been" moments: I almost turned around to go say hello to them, but didn't; who knows but had I done so I might not have ended up in that mess?

Still confused, but grateful for your thoughts,
Susan

[Green1]

, I also passed a Deli at a lookout over Lake Superior in late September, about 10 minutes before the second catastrophic failure. It's one of those "could-have-been" moments: I almost turned around to go say hello to them, but didn't; who knows but had I done so I might not have ended up in that mess?

That could have been me...

[Erebus]

That could have been me...

So, Green1, does that mean that your engine problems are contagious? <duck>

[brewskie]

Hi Sue,

I am in Winnipeg. What you could do is to tow it down to Frank Motors and see what they say. They are a highly reputable diesel shop here in town. I bring mine there for oil changes and mine is not the only one they have seen.

They should be to see what the extent is. Then maybe they could get in touch with Mardy at Amazing Auto in Richmond BC. for some advice.

Just a thought.

Good Luck

Rob