so...... the camshaft has snapped!!

Well........ its pretty self explanatory really but here goes

So it started to tap yesterday on first start up so I checked the oil after having a slight oil leak (its a land rover after all) the oil level was a little low so I topped it up but still tapping.

I got about 10 minutes down the road and I lost almost all power. So I pulled over whipped the rocker cover off to uncover a snapped camshaft!

Anyone got any ideas as to why it would snap because I can't see why it would just snap like that because it wasn't starved of oil and it was still running sort of.

Does anyone know a thread on camshaft replacement?

Camshaft or rocker shaft? the Haynes manual shows how to replace both.

Sorry yes it's the rocker shaft
Any idead what could of caused it? Im guessing at oil starvation?

Don't know the cause, but a replacement shaft and maybe rockers does not seen to be that difficult.

wear on shaft and rockers ,poor parts and failed hyd tappet

jamesmartin said:

wear on shaft and rockers ,poor parts and failed hyd tappet

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Do TDI's ave drybolic tappets up North then ?

Not a big job to replace mate, just make sure you set the gaps correctly I ended up snapping a rocker doing that wrong!

Could I just get another set of locking nuts and lock them in place while I take the rocker bolts out?

eightinavee said:

Do TDI's ave drybolic tappets up North then ?

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thought it was v8 ,but i have seen a tdi with hydraulic tappets ,

its not usually oil starvation ,can be just a securing stud thread failure in head or cam belt slipping a tooth or too

jamesmartin said:

thought it was v8 ,but i have seen a tdi with hydraulic tappets ,

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Wish it was a v8

I'll check the timing when I get chance to repair the rocker shaft. It looked pretty wet with oil when I removed the rocker cover but couldn't understand how it could just snap but thanks for the advice I'll look into it