As the title really, done something really silly tonight, went in the garage to refit my piper 285 cams and err can't bring myself to admit it, well i put them in the wrong way round, yes believe me i know i'm a complete p*ick. The problem is i turned the engine over a couple of times before i realised the problem. So i refitted them the right way round with the timing bang on and now it won't start. It's turning over but won't fire and i'm concerned i've damaged a few of the valves.
Any help or advice
Paul

Mmmmm I'm not sure whether it'll be okay or not But a compression test would be a good place to start (with the cams in the right way round. Basically it'll depend on the cam timing as either cam will lift either set of valves by the same amount (hope this makes sense).

its possible unfotunately
did you turn it by hand or on the starter.
if by hand then any piston to valve interference would be felt and very difficult to turn the engine past the starter though would do some damage. do a compressiom check to see

Rich

I dont know if a zetec is a none interference engine... I'm just hoping that piper 285 stands for an incredibley mild cam with hardly any duration..

Fingers are corssed for you mate!

*GULP*

You could also pull the plugs out an see if you can see the piston crown(might be difficult) if the pistons are old and sooty you MIGHT be able to see if they are marked.

They can sadly.

You might be lucky, if you have hydraulic tappets and you were turning it over by hand, chances are they were in the 'bled down' state and suffered no damage. If you span it over on the starter, you might wanna pull the head off it(!) and have a look.

Does it sound like it has compression? Dry tappets take ages to fill with oil, and until then the valves barely open - 's why I hate rebuilding heads as I always think I've done something wrong when they take ages to start up for the first time!

Defo head off time.
Its the only way to be sure.
Got to have the head off the Rs. Ton plus up Eau Rouge and the alternater belt loosed off wrapping itself around the cam belt

(start edit)
The problem is that the valves might have hit each other first, before the pistons. it was this that caused my tale of woe below.
(end edit)

I once put the camshafts in, in the wrong order in a 3.0l 32valve Vauxall Senator straight six engine. Valves were ok, BUT, I broke one of the camshafts doing it.




£400 for a camshaft, and that was 10 years ago.

[Edited on 21/9/07 by jollygreengiant]

Panic over, thanks for the help though guys. Went in the garage this morning pressed the start button and she fired up straight away. My thinking is maybe a couple of the valves stuck down on the inlet side from when the exhaust cam was there and over night the spring pushed them back up.
Not sure what really happened but she sounds sweet as a nut again now
So i'm one happy bloke today, i thought a major strip down was on the cards.
Paul

On just about any twin cam 4 valve engines swapping the cams shouldn't cause any problem.


However after removing the heads or cam or cam belts always turn an engine over by hand with the plugs out before trying to start it.