oil ran out, oil block, cams worn, other damage likely?

[fireartist]

Hmm, my car's just gone over 100K miles, so if this is going to be really expensive to fix, I'm not sure whether it'll be worth it - that said, what's my problem?

About a month and half ago, I totally ran out of oil and coolant - bad - no excuse.
There seemed to be a lot of oil around the bottom of the engine - maybe a leaking crank seal?
I refilled, and kept an eye on the levels, both of which seemed fine - it wasn't eating oil anyway.
Continued doing my normal 200-300 miles per week.

Then last week (while I was on holiday, 500 miles from home) it started acting like it had damp points or something. Engine was starting ok, but sounding like it was struggling to keep going. When I was pulling away from junctions, I had to really rev it first or there'd be no compression and I'd move like a snail.
At the end of the week (the morning of the drive home) it started squeaking, which was significantly worse by the time I was at my stop for the night, about 400 miles later.
Luckily I was staying with an agricultural engineer

He opened the cam box cover, and it was obvious that there was no oil in the area of the 4th piston, and that cams 6 and 8 were worn.
The oil lubrication holes on those cams were glazed over, so he unclogged them, oiled the area up, and said to check again when I got home whether the area was now being lubricated, and hopefully it'll just be a camshaft replacement.

When I got home (100 miles later) I discovered I hadn't tightened the cam box cover properly - there'd been some leakage. I took the cover off, and it was obvious that there was still an oil blockage, and now the inside wall around those cams were covered with gritty-looking black oil. I presume that's from the metal that's been getting worn away on the cam?
I found that when I squirted oil into any of the lubrication holes on cams that were okay, the oil flowed out of adjascent cams. When I tried squirting it into cams 6 through 8, it just backed out.
I take it this means the inside of the camshaft is blocked?

Is it possible to predict if there's any other damage, such as valves, etc - and that replacing the camshaft will be all that's needed replaced?
If I decide to do this myself, what other things should I look out for, and how much of the engine will I have to strip down?

I'd feel happy doing any amount of work on the engine, if I had a Haynes manual (full stripdown and rebuild) for the car, but they've never published one for daewoos. I believe the lanos is based on the Vauxhall Astra chassis, but I've no idea if the engine is the same, so I don't know if a Haynes manual for an Astra will help (and unfortunately both the astra manuals in Halfords were still shrink wrapped)
Does anyone know whether any other cars in the UK have the same engine, that a manual would be good for?
I do have a pdf of a full lanos parts manual that I found somewhere on the net - it's really helpful for a lot of stuff, but there's no proceedures in it for anything.

Oh yes, after reading on here today to tighten the cam cover until the nuts bottom out - I did just that - and one of the nuts sheared in half. Luckily it looks like there'll be enough length exposed when the cover's off again to remove it ok.
But it unfortunately means that I'm out of action until I get a new nut - I should be able to drive a couple miles to a shop, but nothing else. Does anyone know if those nuts are some sort of standard size?

Cheers!

Lanos 1.4 SE
March 2000
SOHC
101K miles
UK

[gazzauk]

Hi to be honest there could be a number of things that can go wrong if you have ran out of oil..what i would do is clean it all out clean all the blocked channels and put it all back ..as for the bolt you said had snaped i would put some nut lock on there just to make sure it doesnt come off..then start it up the worse that could happen then is it might sound a bit tapettery(not sure how to spell that one.lol) if it does then then change the camshaft but you might be lucky and got away with it..

If its anything like the 1.6 nuberia then the engines are quite easy to take apart i have it down to about 1 hour to get down to getting the head gasket out.. lol..if yours is the double overhead cam let me know and i will take some pics for you as i have my head sat in my front garden till i get some new headbolts tomorrow since 1 of mine snapped inside of the head

engines arnt as fragile as people make out it does take a lot to "kill" an engine

Cheers

Gary

[fireartist]

what i would do is clean it all out clean all the blocked channels and put it all back

Can anyone point me to (or write ) a description of how to remove and replace the camshaft and possibly also the cylinder head? (1.4 SOHC)

Also, how do you find TDC on this engine?

as for the bolt you said had snaped i would put some nut lock on there just to make sure it doesnt come off

That's a good idea - I had just removed the head and kept it in my toolbox. But I've put it back on with some nutlock, and hopefully it might even hold enough to undo the rest of the bolt.

if yours is the double overhead cam let me know

Thanks, but it's the SOHC.

engines arnt as fragile as people make out it does take a lot to "kill" an engine

Thanks, that's reassuring!

[gazzauk]

do you alrady have the head off???

That's a good idea - I had just removed the head and kept it in my toolbox. But I've put it back on with some nutlock, and hopefully it might even hold enough to undo the rest of the bolt.

if not take all the spark plugs out and pull the engine around on the bottom pully and get sombody to look into the spark plug hole to watch for the piston comming up you will see it come upto the top and as it hits tdc you will feel the pully kinda go loose just mark up the pully and the cam pully that way you can make sure they both go back on as they came off..there might be some timing marks but if you cant find them then my idea works just as well

if you cant see the piston get somebody to hole the dipstick into the spark plug hole and you will feel the dipstick going up and down with the piston..yet again mark off both pullys when you have done that you can take off the cambelt look around for anything attched to the head manifolds ect...it its anything like mine you can leave the inlet one but just take off all the pipes undo the head bolts and lift if you have missed anything it will be hard to lift or it will get cought on sommit as you lift away

as for taking the cam off its almost the same but just take off the cambelt and and undo the bolts that hold the camshaft in place

if you do take the head off just remember to change the head gasket when you have the head off as the old one will not seal it again

[fireartist]

do you alrady have the head off???

That's a good idea - I had just removed the head and kept it in my toolbox. But I've put it back on with some nutlock, and hopefully it might even hold enough to undo the rest of the bolt.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I only meant the head of the bolt that I had snapped off! lol!

It sounds reasonably simple to remove the cam shaft and clean it - and I've also got a Haynes manual for a different SOHC engine, and it seems like the same general proceedure.
So now I'm off to 'borrow' all my dad's tools!

cheers!

[MMamdouh]

the 1.4/1.5 SOHC is a pretty easy engine to service as it is relativly simple on the mechanical side, oil starvation service is the bitch bit and unfortunatly you can't tell what the exact damage is untill you tare apart the engine and check all the parts for wear and damage.

basicly if you did the steps for the timing belt replacment you will be a few steps away from a head removal... you will need to:

1- drain coolant
2- unscrew your exhaust down pipe from the mani
3- remove spark plugs and leds
4- remove cam cover

as for cam/crank adjustment for reinstallation, you can find all that in the how to article for the 1.4 timing belt job.

i'd recommend a professional engine oil flush product as only God knows where the oil buildups are formed and i am sure no one can reach all of them that easy given that you will only remove the head, repeat the flush process if the drained oil/flush mixture was too black and dirty.

MMamdouh