740 Turbo - does the timing belt cause damages.

[Duong Nguyen]

I'm inspecting a 740 Turbo which has had its timing belt broken. The
seller said that on this type of car no damages can be done. Is it
true? If not which engine would have caused problems.
Thanks.

 

[Bill Bradley]

I'm inspecting a 740 Turbo which has had its timing belt broken. The
seller said that on this type of car no damages can be done. Is it
true? If not which engine would have caused problems.
Thanks.

Only the 16 Valves or 8 valves with aftermarket high-lift (SAM, Unitek,
Enem) cams are in danger of damage. The NA and Turbo 8 Valve B21/23/230
are all non-interference engines meaning that the valves cannot hit the
pistons. No harm, no foul. If the timing belt is all that caused it to
stop running then in fact there is no damage.

That having been said, the timing belt is remarkably cheap and easy to
replace on these engines (~30-45 minutes start to finish if you've done
it before), so if he's trying to sell you a car with a non-running
engine there may be other problems that he's trying to hide.

Bill

 

[Nisse]

If not which engine would have caused problems.

Thanks.

The timing belt broke on my 480 ES -88, which made the pistons hit the
valves ,.... NOT cheap!
/Nisse

 

[Peter Milnes]

Generally speaking the B230, B200 engines are non-interference type engines.
This means that there is no way that the pistons can contact the valves if the
belt breaks while the engine is running. The twin-cam versions, B 234 and B204
and, a fortunately rare, version of the B230 with a Heron type head are
interference types. The diesel engined versions of ALL Volvo models are also
interference, as are the six cylinder in-line engines. I believe that most of
the five cylinder engines are interference as well.

Cheers, Peter.

: I'm inspecting a 740 Turbo which has had its timing belt broken. The
: seller said that on this type of car no damages can be done. Is it
: true? If not which engine would have caused problems.
: Thanks.