Hey all. Sorry for not keeping in touch. Been having a busy summer, without my bus. As some of you know I was driving it from Northern Alberta to Vancouver when it crapped out on a hill just south of Kamloops. Well the mechanics took the engine apart and this is what they sent me:

We took your engine out and it was torn down today. Not good news, I’m afraid. Did you have your valves adjusted any time recently before the damage occurred? The reason I asked is that there was one valve adjuster on each side that backed off. One side more so then the other. On the #3 exhaust valve & #2 intake valve, the adjusters backed off. There is evidence that the adjusting screws were pounding back & forth against the valve covers for a while, before the head of the # 3 valve broke off. There is a huge amount of damage. The engine case has a hole in it where the valve exited the front of the case, behind the flex plate. The broken valve head destroyed the cylinder head and the pistons & cylinders. It really is quite a mess. The valve head got knocked around the inside of the engine doing a horrible amount of damage. I would not want to use anything that is left inside.
It is too bad you did not hear the noises that were obviously present long before the engine died. If you had heard them and stopped right away, you very likely would have been able to do a repair and saved most of it.

Just before I left Alberta I pulled out my John Muir book and did a valve adjustment. Never done one before and judging by this I don’t think I’ll ever do one again. I’ll leave the mechanics to people who know what they’re doing and concentrate on shooting vids. Stupid. Oh well, at least I have a line on two 1.7 litre engines.