Pain and Pleasure times of the 200 20v

[Jagadeesh Yedetore]

Before I ask for help parts, consolation and advice... let me state what
has happened.

Car details:
1991, 200 20v (Black... as though color mattered).
155k mi and still strong until ..
all this is happening in Sunny California ... (Oakland)

Three weeks to tomorrow ago, my 91 200 20v just stopped to start. I
immediately contacted Arun Rao( another 200 20v owner and my cousin) it
immediately seemed to point to a dead fuel pump. I had the car towed to my
mechanic's shop and the next day he informed me that the fuel pump was
fine and it was actually my distributor. within a few minutes of his
changing it, it blew (apparently due to some wire that was
shorting). With a replacement (All Bosch) and new spark plug wires as
well during the test drive, the engine just stalled and the mechanic
pulled it over and diagnosed the problem to a potentially serious woe. A
sheared sprocket on the cam shaft. The one that is driven by the timing
belt. The hope was that it was a synchronous shearing and all the valves
and pistons had behaved..... hmmmm... looks like no such miracle has taken
place. I just got worse... the driving sprocket on the crank shaft had
also sheared. I am here trying to figure out the root cause of the problem. The
questions that are bubbling around are ....

1. Why did the first distributor die... Haven't had a chance to look at it
to try and figure out cause. The timing belt was replaced 10, 000 miles
ago by the same mechanic
2. Assuming the burnt dist. was due to a shorted wire.... did something go
wrong with the way the new distributor was put in that contributed to this
SHEAR problem... All this for finding root cause and accord blame or
consider it an act of GOD.
3. As a result what should have been considered while replacing the
distributor. Or was the problem in from the time the timing belt was
replaced and it finally showed itself up now.
4. Worst of all, now as replacement is it better if I just replace the
motor itself..... if things are too bad .. like definitely dead 20 valves,
pistons, head block and ....
.... All the help I can get will be appreciated ... Right now Uncle SAM
is not.

Thanks a lot in advance... 

--Jaggi

 
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Jagadeesh Yedetore,
DSP Software Engineer, 
Cisco Systems, 425 East Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134
Tel: 408-525-4235 			Fax: 408-525-3934
e-mail: jaggi at cisco.com
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