Was trouble installing cams. Now restarting HG job.

Are both cam wheel dowl pins suppose to be at the 12oclock position? My driver is at 12 but my passenger is at 6. This guy has both of his at 12. https://youtu.be/iQ7-wmjo6PE skip to 30:00

 

Yes turn your passenger cam sprocket so your yellow mark is at 12:00. Both need to line up with the v notch in the rear timing cover when you install timing belt

 

Ok. And that’s not going to affect anything with the internal timing? It should all still be at TDC?

 

Yes correct, once your cams are bolted in (with their dots matching of course), the sprocket is used to index to TDC. Before you do your timing belt, rotate both cams a couple times to make sure everything feels/sounds good. This will be your last chance to isolate any issues easily.

 

Did I miss something that caused the passenger cam to be at 6 position? I’m worried I just messed everything up lol.

 

No you are good, remember you aligned it using the double dots so it was meant to be that way. The FSM never says to put the cams in any position like TDC, Etc, it says line up the dots. The positioning to 12:00 happens later with the sprockets.

or put another way- when you buy refurbed heads, the cams are at some random position that they settled on in the mail. It doesn’t matter since you will set them with the sprockets later. The relationship between the two camshafts is all that matters in the head.

 

Ok I feel a lot better now lol. Thank you sir!

 

Currently intoxicated scraping the old head gasket material off the block. Not sure how I feel about all the crap getting in the cylinders and coolant/oil passages. But I'll vacuum out the cylinders when I'm done. At least my heads got machined so I don't have to think about cleaning them with a plastic scraper or something.

 

vacuum everything, then clean with kerosene. Open oil drain plug and squirt kerosene down oil passages if you think there is stuff in there. You did stuff them all with pieces of rags, right?
Also, the small round hole is the one and only oil supply to your heads (1 per head), make sure it is clear and not contaminated

 

I have shop towels stuffed down in the holes but it only does so much if that makes sense. Have to take the oil pan off as well since it had a seepage so I guess I'll clean with kerosene then pull the pan.

 

Nice! Yeah I freaked out about what went down there as well but flushed a lot of kerosene through and everything went fine. I’m glad I didn’t have to pull my pan, with 4WD it’s a ton of work

 

My engine is removed from the vehicle so it's been a wonderful time. And an awful time.

This MLS head gasket sure does leave some crap baked on the block. Basically scraping until I can't feel any raised spots with my finger. Then acetone on a towel.

 

How hard is it suppose to be to compress this pin? I got it in the vise and it barely budges with decent effort. I don’t wanna break anything. Is this just a sign that it’s old? Not leaking oil.

 

Never mind. Just realized you have to compress it slowly little by little. Also, bailing wire is not strong enough to use as the pin lol.

 

small drill bit works

 

Managed to remove the timing belt tensioner finally, installed timing belt, kept everything at TDC. Removed tensioner pin. I go to install the #2 timing cover and I notice my timing crank gear is off 2 teeth. Figured I might have budged something. Take it all apart again, crank the gear back over again. Reinstall belt, remove tension pin. It happens AGAIN.

What am I doing wrong?

I did not run into this problem when I did the timing belt and water pump a few months ago. We also did not remove the tensioner back then.

 

Another thing:

I made marks on the belt where the cam pulleys and timing cover marks line up with each other in the beginning of all this. I now cannot get those marks to line up. One side is 2 teeth short. Idk how it’s physically possible because it’s a relatively short distance between the cam pulleys, but sure as shit, they’re short 2 teeth.

I’ll get more pictures soon.

 

It’s a struggle even when you do a new tensioner that’s pinned back. FSM says to get belt in position, then install tensioner. That works.
The other way that I’ve done twice- remove the center timing roller (the one between the cam sprockets), get everything perfect, then bolt it back in.

 

Yeah this is very common.....many struggle here.......

 

I’m trying this technique right now cus I believe this is how we did it last time. Still kinda mind boggling cus you’d think that it shouldn’t matter how it goes on once the tensioner is off.