I thought bent valves were a guarantee when the belt goes?
true enough, could've been worse. No idea what it will cost though...
That sucks for Christmas or anytime for that matter. Bent valves are pretty much a guarantee. The question is how many are bent and if the pistons are not too badly nicked up.
If you can remove and replace the head yourself. The budget should be around 2K for just the upper fix as long as the pistons and lower 1/2 are ok. There is machine shop work that one usually needs to be jobbed out. One or more guides are probably going to be out of round and should be changed out anyways. You should replace a few problem items as well. It might even be a little less than 2K as the G car valves cost less than 89.5 and later cars.
Although I sympathize with you I would not have been able to get back into an Esprit without an unfortunate incident occurring to another. I am currently doing an upper 1/2 rebuild. The question is did the problem cause the belt to break or did the belt breaking cause the damage.
Robert Grener I think we might have met in 2002 Geneva, Wisconsin or perhaps just from the old turbo list. One of these days we need to have a nice Lotus chat like in the old days. BTW I have been tracking a possible problem area that maybe occurs around, near, or after the 40K mile range that maybe masked by the belt failure. Typical Lotus failure item that is inexpensive but turns into a major headache.
Cal H.