Ford Transit 2.0L wet belt?

[matty]

OK! I am making this official ear and now. so listen up, (Pun intended).
I have just 20 mi9ns ago completed the single most annoying stupid mental rediculous service procedure on any car bike or 4x4 i have ever done in 50+ years of messing with these things.
I changed a wet timing belt on a 2019 ford transit 2.0 eco blue tech (30K miles
regularly serviced) or some such garbage named van for my Nephew.
It took me 7 hours over two days and was horrendous and frighteningly enlightening to say the least.
He came to me scared to death about these wet timing belts prematurely failing, i said buy the bits a timing kit and i would do it over a few days due to work and the home farm commitments.
He got everything aux belt the kit cover sealer new crank bolt etc..etc.
So I got into it yesterday morning, took off the undertray out with the off side headlight unit things were looking good decent amount of room ...EASY.
The aux belt off Engine mount off, crank pulley bolt out a little three lagged puller i had on . ...No way, i needed a big old puller to move this mother.
Rang a mate he said he had a snap on puller would do it come and get it iff you want, with the caveat" Matty what FFS are you working on such shit for?", "its the nephews" " Come get it then".
On the Yam xt600 gets the puller back home on it!.
pulley off no problem.
All the bolts out the cover and levered the cover off totally destroying it in the process it was stuck on so solid that is why the kit includes a new cover. dumb idea.
Its filthy in there with vwhat looks like the old school neglected engine black death carbon in oil routine but no its Rubber! squishy sticky and everywhere over everything, we are talking about a 30k miles well maintained engine here. timing belt off after i pined the cams blah blah blah1 the teeth were rough missing almost and debris everywhere i never seen anything like it before. .
Oil pump is driven by yet another wet belt which ford in their infinite wizdon have been doing on the likes of the Lynx engine and its later incarnations of the same for many years. I ask you this, I wonder which bright spark at ford decided "Hey i tell you what lets run our oil pump drive chains with belt drive instead and hey we will run our timing belts in oil too" It must have gone like " yes good idea lets do it". Gates developed the belts and bobs your uncle fanny is your aunt, and wola! Wet belts a super cool but in fact terrible idea.
So i deviate back to the job, Off with the sump which yet again is stuck on with something that holds the shuttle together with, i litteraly got an old table knife and tapped it around as genttle as i could to reduce warpage when removing this thing, thankfully i managed it with just a slight bit of distortion i managed to straighten out just fine.
Inside the crank and block had no bits i could see on it , but the oil pick up pipe and strainer were very badly clogged with rubber belt debris, how it was circulating oil i will never know just through a small area of gauze here and there not clogged up with rubber swarf. A Nightmare and with low miles.
Oil pump belt on it looked a bit loose but its how they are by all accounts.
On with the sump with the sealer , and new water pump belt on timing sprockets cover on etc. Then the Pylley back on new bolt Wow! 300 newton mitres torque then anothe 90 degrees, rediculous.
Built it back up mount light unit etc etc new oil filter etc. water back in bleed up. it started first time running great.
Not a bad job in itself ok room to work if you strip the van down enough, but what a dumb idea Rubber belts in oil which although allegedly designed to run in oil clearly dont thrive in it hence the premature failures occurring.
I advised nephew to sell the van or get ready for another swap at 20K max to try and guarantee a reliable engine. He agreed and is looking at a VWT6 now.
this is the worst thing i have seen or don e ever on anything so relatively new, Bad design IMHO but hey what the hell do i know. rant over be careful if you got one of these things it could leave you in a world of hurt is it fails which from what i have seen looks a distinct possibility even at 30k miles.

.

 

[Alan F.]

Holy crap. Makes me wonder if stupidity like this is designed to get fleet companies to move on to EV's?

This was the little Transit Connect?

 

[ZoomerP]

matty, I've seen engine teardowns of failed Ford engines that were killed by the wet timing belt design. Here's an EcoBoost 1.0 with a similar wet belt design. You can skip ahead to see what he finds the deeper he gets into the engine. I cued it up to where he pulls the pan and digs into the oil pickup at 20:46.



The rubber degrades, the teeth separate from the belt, debris from the belt falls into the pan, debris quickly clogs the oil pickup, and crank bearing failure occurs. If there's a good reason (past cost savings) to use a belt instead of a chain, I don't know what it is.

Ford claims the belts won't fail over the recommended service interval if the specified, belt-friendly oil is used. Either way, I won't buy anything with a wet timing belt system after seeing this carnage.

 

[FLrider]

Scotty Kilmer talked about this moronic design also. Why no timing chain? Planned obsolescence….🤬

 

[ZoomerP]

I doubt it'd be difficult to find a failed belt that had been exposed to approved belt-friendly oil that was changed at the recommended intervals. This is one of those engineering decisions that will always be questioned, with no answer from Ford about why it came to be.

 

[matty]

Holy crap. Makes me wonder if stupidity like this is designed to get fleet companies to move on to EV's?

This was the little Transit Connect?

No the bigger transit. dont know the mark number think mark 7 but could easy be wrong. so here is a picture 2.0 diesel.

 

[Alan F.]

I'm driving a '19 150 AWD with I think a 3.9l V6, hopefully there's no surprises like that in my company's near future.

It's odd seeing that blue one with no right side slider.

 

[FLrider]

I'm driving a '19 150 AWD with I think a 3.9l V6, hopefully there's no surprises like that in my company's near future.

It's odd seeing that blue one with no right side slider.

It's a UK version and they drive on the 'wrong' side of the road....

 

[Alan F.]

I've had a few vans with two sliding doors. I find them inconvenient for my needs and keep most of my regular gear inside the rear doors. I really like the idea of a small fold-down table mounted to the inside of the left rear door, I think it was brought up in the T1n can motovan thread.

 

[matty]

I do not know the engine Oriins its fanily name, its Not like a Puma engine and its not like a Lynx either but its similarish.
Now The UK ford raingers have a 2.0l diesel in them, and they do a 3litre five cylinder diesel too both of which i heard had wet belts, not the transit i worked on may be the same engine as the 2.0litre ranger motor but transverse, i simply do not know. the % cylinder ranger diesel and i presume the 2.0l to, are made in torkey From what i know.
The earlier rangers the 2.2 had IiiRC a 2.2 Puma engine the chain driven foruner to this wet belt idea, so sharing engines across the ford range is not new as far as i can see.
Is it turkish?

 

[matty]

Just done a search. Looks like rangers from 2022 will have the dreadfull lion 3litre V6 diesel fitted to fords landrover some jaguars and peugeots, heaven help ford. the Turkish 5 cylinder which was acctualy 3.2 litre is gone. the 2 litre ranger no idea about that yet but i am thinking its same as the transits we got now. .

 

[Shinyribs]

Well, this is good info to have. Thanks Matty.

I occasionally miss having a "nicer" truck, but my '84 F150 keeps doing everything I ask of it, and stuff like this keeps shying me away from newer vehicles.

 

[matty]

Well, this is good info to have. Thanks Matty.

I occasionally miss having a "nicer" truck, but my '84 F150 keeps doing everything I ask of it, and stuff like this keeps shying me away from newer vehicles.

I do not run anything newish if we can help it. And i like to research the platform i am getting into before buying even if it just a few hundred £. I Do not run petrol vehicles apart from tools and motorbikes / ATVs. Cars and trucks ALL DIESEL has been 50 years we have only had kit cars on petrol last 40 years car wise. And i am converting a marlin roadster to diesel soon so even thats set to change.
Back to the Fords> the older transits, Sorry dont know numbers think its Mark 6. Like this.

These had the Puma diesel in them in 2 litre and 2.2, a ok engine in my opinion, i ran a 2 litre 130PS TDCI in a 2005 MK3 mondeo estate car, it was variable turbo and mine had been owned by a Diesel tunning firm for vthec first 300K miles it had different injectors in and EGR delete a Big exhaust Bigger VV turbo on a raised Fabricated manifold and a biger FMIC. It was fast and still did 66mpg on a long run and 50s mpg around the towns.
I got that car to over 500K, i was wanting to keep it to 1 million, but it lost of all things its heater motor was the middle of winter the dual mass clutch was starting to slip too it had a engine mount that was starting to clunk, my fauld provoking it, Needless to say it got parked up round the back ( A guna do job) It lost its charge i took the battrey off charged it up but that ended up on a little ford 3000 tractor, The flat tyre on the rear near side cracked on the tyre wall. You get the picture, Scrap prices were up it was a rainy spring, and gathering up scrap to weigh in it was £230 a ton at that time, qwll it was on the trailer and up the scrap yard and off to india.
But the Puma engine though not loved by everyone, i thought they were good knew a few had them in transits mondeos and focus fords and theyb worked well from what i know.
These wet belts might get to 500ks or more, but the wet belt idea from what i have seen is a bad idea. I know this much i wont be buying anything with a wet belt engine in, But look on the bright side, there will be some tidy low miles Ford rangers about with wrecked engines going super cheap, a great base for a mercedes OM606 diesel or even a 6BT cummins swap. Every cloud has a silver lining.