engine woes RAC recovered

H reg 90 300tdi conversion , wife was driving home and said smoke was coming out of the exhaust and it was losing power so she pulled over. when I got there I changed fuel filter and checked what I could in the dark etc I then noticed the middle bolt on the rocker cover was at an angle so climbed on and it had sheared , wife then turned engine over it sounded like brexit and dark grey smoke poured out of the exhaust and with bolt removed a nice spray of oil onto the inside of the bonnet, its out side a garage in the morning I will go and let em know it needs fixing. can any of you shed some light on what it might be ?many thanks

Snapped rocker arm shaft?

......... and hopefully not too expensive to fix.

at garage a good garage will report back

hi all the cambelt snapped so we go from there after they strip it down

raisingveg said:

hi all the cambelt snapped so we go from there after they strip it down

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Oh dear, hope it's not too drastic

not sure what worst case scenario is ?

raywin said:

Oh dear, hope it's not too drastic

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raisingveg said:

not sure what worst case scenario is ?

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Not usually a major issue on a 300tdi (I've had it happen twice) Rocker arms, pushroads and brass pushrod carriers are usually the victims but the latter needs the head removed

It wont be cheap, but it wont be scary either.
Dont forget on the 300 depending on engine number theres different cam belt mod kits available as back in the day they had issues with the belt running off the front of the crank pulley and wearing out on the inside of the front cover then snapping when it got to thin.
Simplest/cehapest was a crank pulley with little side walls to keep the belt on, more expensive was a whole new timing chest to keep the inj pumppulley in line with the crank cambelt pulley.

the lad who is doing the work on it and has a landy himself and has our other cars in the garage for MOT etc he a good lad my truck is a national monument in my opinion and needs to be kept for the nation and I will pay what it takes cos I know the price will be fair will let you all know the out come and thanks for the replies

lynall said:

It wont be cheap, but it wont be scary either.
Dont forget on the 300 depending on engine number theres different cam belt mod kits available as back in the day they had issues with the belt running off the front of the crank pulley and wearing out on the inside of the front cover then snapping when it got to thin.
Simplest/cehapest was a crank pulley with little side walls to keep the belt on, more expensive was a whole new timing chest to keep the inj pumppulley in line with the crank cambelt pulley.

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I recently had the same happen to my 200tdi, (see thread here) but I had valve sealing issues so had to remove the head to regrind the valve seals. I know you are not doing the job yourself but is something else to bear in mind when it comes to the work involved.

dag019 said:

I recently had the same happen to my 200tdi, (see thread here) but I had valve sealing issues so had to remove the head to regrind the valve seals. I know you are not doing the job yourself but is something else to bear in mind when it comes to the work involved.

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Cheers the belt snapped as my wife pulled away so hopefully its not to bad

raisingveg said:

Cheers the belt snapped as my wife pulled away so hopefully its not to bad

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Its probably one of those things if you dont do it yourself then you need to know your mechanic well, would be easy to build up the parts and labour if they were trying to maximize the job.