Thanks QinteQ, not feeling great about it all now but do appreciate the moral support always welcome when it comes to this!

I'm thinking I might have a punt at changing the balance shaft assembly and redo the timing belt on it to see if I can get any closer.

Here's a question, could I get away with removing the balance shaft assembly completely, put the pan back on and run the engine, all be it briefly to determine if the knock has gone? This would confirm that was the problem and know I need to replace it before shelling out and trying it?

 

I think you'll find a very nice replacement engine out there in the Engine Kennels. I'm sure one will greet you by waggling its exhaust tail pipe. Or how about another Voyager with MOT problems and good engine. Not so bad if you've got a place to break it.
Good luck and hope to hear from you very soon with your repairs completed or a new set of wheels.

 

Above my pay grade that one Andy. As you know from my utterances I left the oily bits 35 years ago and went to computer bits, Goggsy or tfb are perhaps a better bet for oily bits. I've always gone full synth + filter @ every 5 years which in my case is only 10-15k miles and ditto the lazy-gearbox 1/2 change @ the same interval because I'm nearer the crem than new car needs and the car still has not reached 70k.

Allpar : The dual balance shafts were put into the oil sump to cut vibration, so removing them and replacing them will lead the (+) vibration and (-) fuel (-) emissions economy & noise. Its that the balance bit of the reciprocating assembly is so expensive as it needs to be balanced statically and dynamically for this to be completely satisfactory that worries me about your thinking.

Box it back up, down again with a couple of 80+kg pull magnets clean out, and back up without the balance shafts might be an acceptable risk - ask the 'rebuild specialist' and get a quote as a starter for 10 for your next move.

As it was it was a noise, not a full catastrophic fail, those bits of themselves look fairly innocuous and the 1/2 0 ring should be recognisable to a 'rebuild specialist'.

 

Does that Balance Shaft assembly just drop down after removing sump and unbolting. Be interesting to see what's wrong with it, I can only take it one of the cast weights has come loose on its shaft.
So replacement engines are out there or a whole car with good engine and MOT failure.

 

Thinking about the drive to the balancer unit, gearwheel, how is it connected to shaft, keyed maybe, maybe sheared and repairable. Need to look into this as looks like balancer unit is either not being driven or out of sync.

 

Andy, Goggsy, self & expert.

My reading of the thread is the expert told [past tense] Andy the balance shafts were (1) the problem and they were [past tense] (2) fubard, I'm happy to be corrected. If that's the case get a price from the expert and as Goggsy suggests look for a good short motor replacement.

The problem with that is no car and works miles away now and finding a good short is RHS as we all know. I used to build jet engines and balance the single shaft myself adding + subtraction how the hell you balance a dual multiplane I've no idea.

Buying a ready cooked refurb 2.8 L Turbo R 428 CRD might be a hard shout but its a starting point .. .. .. all this assumes its the balance shafts and the expert is correct. Best of luck Andy, can't you buy a £300 banger with a bit of test and rent on it to get you over the hump ?

 

If the shafts are out of kilter try local marine as well as automotive engineers Andy after all - all 4 pots need balancing shafts and I can't see how they can be balanced on a bench rig. 1+4 and 2+3 plus the CAM are gonna have to be paired in sequence tight oscilloscope style.

But an engine off the peg always incurs additional costs and frankly they are never ready cooked rebuilds but simply steam cleaned and farmed straight out. I'd rather invest in my engine being done local if possible but always after proving the part is at fault before thousands are paid for an alternative one with the same or a dfferent set of problems. Get Goggsy to keep a 'peep' on what's going - you are both in a similar geographic area.

 

I had a major engine failure on my Mercedes some years ago (Valve broken off in the engine) and I found repairs like that always cost a lot more than replacing the engine with a used one.
I've seen 2.5 CRD engines with low mileage for pretty good prices at scrapyards..

In the case of my Mercedes I found an engine for €400,- and building it in the car did cost me €600,-
So maybe that's an idea as worst case solution?

 

Best engine Complete I can find on Fleebay is at Rochdale, more Newcastle way I think. 77,000 miles with 90 day warranty for £600. Others over Antrim Ireland way that I have had parts sent from but their only bare engines.
Not much if anything in South West Scotland. Newcastle way is the hub for secondhand parts for cars and for Motorcycles that my friend here with the Motorcycle/emporium/museum/scrapyard uses.
Mind you saying that he got a nice Peugeot 207 from a dealer who had cooked the engine very cheap and within days he found a doner complete engine & car only miles away. But more Peugeot cars going around than Voyagers.

 

thanks folks, appreciate all the info and scouting around, very much appreciated.
I've been doing a lot of reading up and research (as you do!) and have come to a couple of conclusions.

Firstly, my engine rebuild 'expert' isn't so much, he didn't seem interested in doing the fix or looking into it, perhaps not worth it for him (if he does the repair and it fails, warranty and all that stuff).

Looking it up, the balance shaft assembly is what I saw at the base of the engine after removing the sump. To get at it, remove the oil sump feeder hose and I should be able to get the 6 bolts out of the balance shaft.
It is indeed timed as QinteQ states, I've got a timing locking set coming that includes a pin for locking the balance shaft assembly, from what I'm reading (http://www.tooled-up.com/artwork/prodpdf/vs4945.pdf) you drop the balance shaft assembly out, then set it using the pin so it's in the correct place for re-attaching to the engine. It's on a geared cog that sits to the opposite side of the timing belt, etc.
Doesn't look like it's anything more complex to attach and 'time' it to the engine, I can even avoid removing the timing belt from what I can see, but will probably mark it and mark any rotating parts I can so I can re-align when putting back together.
I'm also contemplating taking it off, put the sump back on and start her up (even just briefly to listen to engine noise). Reading the interwebs shows me plenty boy racers have removed their balance shafts and assemblies (or cut their chain drive on the ones that use chain to connect them) to gain the odd 1 or 2 bhp and suffer a little more engine knock at idle, so it doesn't seem an inherently bad idea, even just to test briefly as a visual check may not answer if it's the balance shaft, weights or something in there, if the noise goes then I know I'm onto something and can concentrate on either replacing it, or finding the bearing/fault on it and repairing.

Luckily I'm borrowing my parents car, so I've got the luxury of having the car off the road for a short while (End of March is my deadline) to have a tinker and figure out what needs done.

So I'm going to head to parents house (They have nice big driveway and garage which is where it's dumped at the moment) and get it back on stands, drop the sump off and attempt taking the balance shaft assembly off the bottom, see what I can find.

I agree on the replacement engine though, that may be the next way to go if I can't get much luck on this avenue, trying to avoid that at the minute though as I'm right in the middle of deciding on how much to 'spend' trying to solve this problem other than giving up and increasing the bank loan and get another car.

Won't be until the weekend I can get there and have another look so in the meantime going to be reading up as much as I can