OT: Can a camshaft just snap?

[leicesterboy15]

Hilarious - when it happens to someone else!

If you had a camcorder that could have made you £250!

[whiskychaser]

If this was to happen is the bottom end affected or will a head off rebuild do the job (sorry about my limited engine terminology)?

You wont be able to see the damage unless the head is off. If a piston hits a valve, the end of the valve is bent up but the top of the piston may be cracked too. There is nowhere for the energy to go and it is not unusual for a con-rod (connects the piston to the crank) to go through the side of the block. This hasnt happened in your case and as the car wasnt moving I would hope to you would get away with just the head.

[bsell]

Yes - Cam shafts can snap. This is usually more common in a pushrod engine, such as an old chevy 350 V8, or Ford 302. It happens when the cam bearings are worn and one fails and locks up but the rest of the engine is still spinning. I have seen atleast one Ford 302 where 3/4 of the CAM could be removed and the last bearing was discoloured and the section of the cam couldn't be budged out with a 10 lb sledge hammer (block was trashed at that point).


Yes it is possible

Think about what goes on with the camshaft when you have a slappy distributor driven off the end of the camshaft farthest away from the timing chain. The combination of the natural harmonics of the camshaft and the slappy distributor can take out multiple cams before the offending distributor is caught.

I wonder where the Mitsu's fuel distributor is run off of? Could it be the opposite end of the cam as the timing belt/chain?

Did anybody poke around the Google to see if this might be a possible warranty situation due to a high failure rate fleet-wide?

Brian