need to find:

Camshaft from a 1995 2.2 liter 4 cylinder Mazda diesel engine (I think R2 is the designation).

A little background:

I've been down in Belize for the last 5 weeks. Where I live there, we are totally off the grid. Currently, our only source of power is a 24 panel solar electric system. Unfortunately on cloudy days, our power grid goes down late at night when the batteries drain below 23.6 volts and the inverter kicks off. This means our freezers and refrigerators are off for a few hours.

We have a backup power generator that the controller will automatically kick over to when the voltage falls below a certain level. Unfortunately, it's broken (as is the backup backup generator...the salty, humid air does a number on engines). So I need a new camshaft and I need to get it down to Belize as cheaply as possible.

We've looked at a number of shops and dealers in the states and nobody seems to know much about this engine. Evidently, it wasn't sold here?

The only promising thing I've yet to find on google is:
http://www.smsdiesel.ie/pdfs/Mazda%20R2%20Diesel.pdf

But I assume that company is in Ireland. That kit seems really nice if it's not prohibitively expensive. I've submitted the contact form on their website, but haven't heard back yet.

Anyhow, if any of you guys in Europe have access to this part and don't mind posting it over to the US for me, I'd be happy to compensate you a bit for your time and effort.

This would make our life a whole lot easier, as we have to be absolutely paranoid about preserving power all the time.

Thanks,

I wouldn't mind acting as an agent for you to onward ship.

I saw the next link on my google search was to this wiki. It lists the R2 being used in a couple of pick up trucks, maybe that's worth looking at first? It lists it as being sold in the US. May be worth a trip to a scrap yard?

Edit - Excuse me, it's been a long week. I missed the Belize part, not sure if they have scarp yards

Cheers

Cris.

While they sold those trucks in the US, I seriously doubt they sold the diesel versions of them. (Diesel is not at all common in the US except for larger trucks, and that is a compact pickup.)

However, maybe in Mexico? Jon, can you call a Mexican Mazda dealer's parts department? Maybe he can help. He should also be able to verify that the engine you have is an R2. Assuming that it didn't get a nasty scratch right across the serial number when it fell off the back of the truck.

Looks like there are dealerships in Mérida (which seems to have two locations), Villahermosa, and Guatemala City.

For a very long-shot, try GUY'S USED AUTO PARTS
800-625-2789, one of very few places I found that claim to have a Mazda camshaft. It is most likely for the gasoline variant of your engine, but possibly (unlikely) they use the same cam for the diesel.

No, that would be extremely unlikely. The RPM range, torque curve, valve lift, timing, and duration would all be different gasoline vs diesel. Probably not worth the phone call, and it's unlikely that the 800 number would work from outside the country anyway.

Never mind...

tanstaafl.

I suspect the biggest problem with US junkyards will be the age of the vehicles. I'm under the impression that cars get scrapped a lot sooner than they used to.


edit Try this search.

Well, I can get you a complete new engine easily enough

I know a few places locally that may have the appropriate spares for either the Ford Ranger (european designation) or Mazda Bongo R2200 (japanese designation) engine. i can make a few enquiries if would help. It would probably have to wait until monday. That said, on Sunday I'm going to the Beauleiu International Autojumble, and it's possible there might be such a thing there. I'll keep my eyes open.

pca

OK, I've put in a search request for the appropriate part on an online breakers yard search engine that I've had good results with in the past. We'll see what happens.

A cyl head in Australia

What's wrong with the original camshaft? If it's just worn out, it's possible to rebuild the lobes by welding and regrind it to the original shape.

I was told that the original cam shaft broke.

I am not a mechanic, but I'm assuming that may mean that someone put the engine back together incorrectly to cause that?

Also, finding a machine shop in a third-world country with those capabilities is rather difficult. I'm certainly not a welder myself, although I plan on taking a welding class before I move here full time.

It may be. Do you know if it ever ran after the last guy worked on it? There may be more wrong with this engine than just that. Typically what breaks cams is running out of oil.

It may be easier to just put a new motor (or one out of an old car) in instead. I'd bet Mazda gas motors would bolt up.

It would be wise to suspect the valves are bent at this point, too.
Without a known history of the engine, it may be best to find a complete donor motor (long-block) and utilize the old motor's ancillary components (manifolds, injectors, etc).

I'm surprised it broke the cam with the rubber drive belt. You're right, tho, almost certainly the valves are bent.

You're right- the cam belt is usually the weakest part... unless it's got a chain or is gear-driven. I don't know the architecture of the motor at all. Lack of oil could certainly ruin bearings and perhaps grab the shaft. Breaking a camshaft (in, say, two parts) is an extreme case. Certainly in order to accomplish that other parts would suffer under the causal circumstances. There's really too little information to give a quality diagnosis.
I'm afraid that, if a cam could be sourced, the effort would wasted. Not only that, but could open up a "can of worms" with further repairs to other portions of the engine.

How difficult would it be to re-power the generator with an engine that is native to Belize? I mean, is there someone there with some fabrication skills and knowledge of diesels and/or generators?

OTOH, if the local diagnosis can be trusted, perhaps 'broken' has been mis-translated and a better term might be 'un-repairable'. If the people on site know that all they need is a cam, then the search for a cam should continue.

Hope it all works out ok!

edit:
wikipedia says the R2 was delivered in the Mazda Bongo, whatever that is.

Yeah. That's the difficult thing. It's tough to get a qualified diesel mechanic out here.

The guy that's been helping us is the bus driver that comes to the nearby village and claims to be able to repair diesel engines and also claims to have experience with this engine. He's the one that told us we need a cam shaft.

I keep coming back to these thoughts-

1. I can't trust the diagnosis.
If it *is* correct, I imagine many worse things await whomever opens the motor up. Perhaps 'camshaft' has been mis-translated?

2. re-powering the generator may be easier.
Can the generator be trucked to a city for repairs/overhauls/heart-transplant?

3. discharging your batteries that much, every night, is very bad for them.
The current battery capacity is under-rated for the usage. It would be very wise to increase capacity or cut down the loads.

4. Wow! Beautiful spot.

1. Unfortunately, right now, it's all I got. No translation problems since the national language is English. If this doesn't fix it, we'll have to find some way to get it towed into the city. This is complicated by:

a. There is no public road that goes to our property. The only road goes across land that is owned by a large farming corporation in the US. They have it gated and they will only allow us through on rare occasions. Even then, it's a lot of work to get them to open the gate.

b. We have a good sized boat, but a couple of drug addicts in the village keep stealing the engine. (Which is ironic, since the only reason we are there is to help the villagers.) We've lost 3 engines total, two in the last 6 months. We can't afford to purchase a third right now, so we're down to a little 15 hp backup that can barely get the boat back and forth across the lagoon.

c. Even if we towed it to the city, it's difficult to find an honest mechanic, especially if your skin is the shade that ours is. We have one van that's been at the mechanics for 3 years while they yank our chains around and never fix it. We stopped giving them money after year one. Every time we come into the city, they promise it will be done, and then make up an excuse when we get there to pick it up. Argh!

d. We're definitely not in Kansas anymore Toto.

2. That may end up happening, but we'll give the bus guy a chance first.

3. That's why the controller shuts the system down...so the batteries don't get damaged. It's only a problem on cloudy days or when we have large groups there. When it's sunny, we cruise right through the night with no problems.

4. When there's a bit of a breeze coming off the water and it's not sweltering hot...it can be a paradise Under other conditions, it can sometimes be the other place.

Just a thought about the cam, ask the mechanic what's up with it. It's common for engines that don't get used often to get rust on the cam lobes, which grinds them flat on later use. If that's the case, all it really needs is a new cam. This is a failure that can be fixed by welding / grinding (by a shop that does this). If you're coming back the the US anytime soon, or knows someone that is, you might consider sending it here for repair.

If you do change the engine out, the trick to getting it working on the generator is to get it to start unattended (most old gas motors won't just do this, but if you modify the idle circuits to be rich, it will probably work), and to adapt the throttle mechanism to the gas carb (probably not hard).

It does sound like just shipping a small portable generator down there might be cheaper/easier than any repair attempts on that monster. Except something that light/portable might also get stolen periodically?

Cheers

Maybe shipping in some heavy chains and locks would be a good idea, too.

It would probably be cheaper just to supply the thieves with drugs.

That's the reality. If they'd just approach us and let us know they're going to steal the boat engine, it'd be far more convenient for us to just pay them black market value . They are selling these things for a pittance of what they're worth so that they can get a fix for a couple weeks.

Unfortunately, those small generators won't power the whole campus and also lack the proper circuitry to auto-start from a controller.