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Cam Tower Gasket Replacement

34K views 38 replies 24 participants last post by  FinToy 
#1 · (Edited)
Takes anywhere from 8-12 hours to do this, including the time the car has to sit for the sealant to cure (I prefer closer to 16 hours for sealant curing however)

So anyway you start by opening the hood


Start by removing the obvious stuff. The accelorator bracket, miscellenous hoses, intake, etc.


Pull the valve covers and upper timing cover


Now you don't HAVE to pull the plug wires, I only did because I was going to clean them, but 4 out of 6 of mine broke.
Anyway, pull the coil wire, put car in neutral and rotate the crankshaft to TDC and make sure the cams are at their timing marks (also pull the distributor cap to make sure the rotor is pointing at #1 or you're gonna be in trouble)


Loosen the cam gears w/o disturbing timing and remove the timing belt.


Remove the upper rear timing cover. Don't forget to get off the remaining gasket material on the backside.





Now, remove the bolts from the cam tower in sequence as is shown here:
Cam Tower Sequence



Remove rocker arms and lash adjusters, but keep them in order to their respective cylinders.




Before installing the lash adjusters back in the head when re-assembling, be sure to bleed them well in lightweight oil.


Intake side cam tower is more of a pain. Unbolt the throttle body and move it out of the way. Unplug distributor.


Now do everything the same as the exhaust tower, same bolt removal sequence.

Now I told my husband to use a little bit of sealant on the gaskets, but I suppose he forgot because I was in town when he did this part. Guess I'll find out if they leak w/o it soon enough.
***edit* they did start leaking again, HIGHLY recommended to use some RTV sealant/gasket maker on the gaskets, not a huge bunch, just a thing spread should suffice***


When putting the cam towers back on, try using a little bit of grease to hold the rocker arms in place, because they're easily knocked off.


I also lubed the cams up as well because we had to let the engine sit overnight because we couldn't finish with no light.

Now here I made my own "Tennesee" gaskets as they're sometimes called. You can get one of these gaskets in the upper timing cover gasket set from Felpro, but because we just bought the cam tower gaskets and nothing else I made my own. And I made TWO gaskets because I've had experience with this little bastard oil galley before, and if that thing leaks, you're in serious trouble. Better safe than sorry. This is why the car should sit overnight, to let this troublesome area and its sealant cure.




Then you put your cam gears back on, make sure they're in time (always check the rotor to make sure, or look through the oil cap opening to see if the cam hole lines up). Put the valve covers back on, replacing the grommets if you got them. (Which is recommended)



I won't say much about getting the timing belt back on except that it's an extreme pain in the ass and now I really have blood into this car. I retarded each cam gear by 1.5 teeth, then I took the timing belt tensioner pulley and pulled it all the way towards the exhaust side, then temporarily tightened it there. Then pulled the belt on, intake cam first, then exhaust. Then I loosened the tensioner pulley and pulled it tight towards the intake until the belt was tight and the slack pulled the cam gears into time.

The obviously you put everything else back on, hoses, throttle body, intake, etc.

Before you try to start the car, don't be dumb like me and forget to plug the distributor back in. That could lead to a lot more pain and suffering, heh



*note* any steps that may have been left out can be located in the online TSRM. And of course also the cam tower bolt torque specs HERE.
 
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#6 ·
Excellent writeup Tanya, thanks for taking the time to do it. Now that you've done the hard part, in being constructive, there are a few things I can add/clarify.

It's best to remove the timing belt before loosening the cam gears to avoid damage to the belt, cogs, & keyway caused by pulling against the timing belt. Although doing this in the correct order does require the use of a special tool (I use 2 bolts through a 4' steel bar with holes every inch) to hold the cam gears.

Use of an egg carton is the best way I've found to hold lash adjusters and rocker arms separate and not have any roll away/drop. At 6x2, it's like they were made just for this.

Once the timing belt is on all cogs, you should not pull the tensioner pulley tight. This defeats its purpose. When you loosen the bolt holding it toward the exhaust side so that you could work the belt on, it should spring back and apply the correct tension on its own (assuming the spring etc. are within specs). Then rotate the crank as described in the TSRM to achieve correct tension before final tightening of this bolt.

Hope these tips help. Again, thanks to Tanya for the actual writeup.
 
#7 ·
Thanks for clarifying some things. This is only the second time we've done this, the 1st time was years ago with my 1st Supra, and we had only changed the exhaust side. This time *I* did 98% of all the work by myself, and took pics. I did as much research as I could here on the forum, and it seems people have many different ways to get the timing belt back on, and some of it was a bit confusing, especially the TSRM version.

Thanks again for the input, it's always appreciated :)
 
#12 ·
Kevin Kisseberth said:
Hey Dave it cant hurt thats why I used the sealant. Just a thin bead since these gaskets are know to leak after time.

Exactly. I didn't figure it was going to hurt anything by using a very thing layer of sealant. I really didn't feel like going through this whole procedure again in 6 months or so, lol
 
#13 ·
thanks for the write up explains a lot on the cost of having them replaced.
 
#14 ·
Dangerous Ken said:
Yes, nice writeup Tanya :good: .

I think you can't Start a thread in FAQ, but you can post replies to one.

So you have to lobby someone with the power to move threads :) .

Ken
I take $10's and $20's in non-sequential bills. ;)


Nice writeup Tanya. Nice to see some new writeups coming in also. Moving to FAQ.

Mike
 
#15 ·
Tanya, I went to 4 different local auto part store, NONE of them had it in stock (checkers, advance autoparts, autozone, napa) :(. So all I did was painted the valve cover and put everything back together. I did notice that the valve cover screws were pretty lose. I just hope that will fix the leak.
 
#16 ·
You gotta plan ahead to work on these cars. You will rarely find ANYTHING in stock even at the dealership. Order all your parts in advance and don't start working until you have everything. Thats what makes writeups like this nice because you know what you are going to need in advance.
 
#17 ·
Suprawes, I just got the car like 5 days ago :kekekegay and we have a long weekend! Based on the threads I read it sounds like you can get it from local auto shop. But anyway, I put everything back and nothing is leaking.. sweet! I clean the engine very very well also (without overhauling of course).
Check out this thread to see the pic.

http://forums.celicasupra.com/showthread.php?t=31180&page=2
 
#18 ·
Thanks for the write up! Looks easy enough.

Half way thru it already. Just need a paperclip to bleed the lash adjusters to keep going. (odd i don't have any) Figured it would be worth doing this after the amount of smoke and smell from the exhaust side was pretty bad just as the engine hit operating temperature. Caught it leaking in a place above the manifold, not to mention the well between towers is a total mess... well... most of the engine bay is. Cleaning oportunity too. But the tower bolts felt looser near that end.

Just to make sure. for the sealant to add to the standard gasket, an oil-resistant gasket-in-a-tube is sufficient, right? and do you recommend the head/timing-back-plate gasket get it too? My timing case is a total mess too... is that gasket a possible cause? I hope its not the head gasket. After I replace the battery, I plan on checking compression just in case.

And yeah, timing belt is on the list too after i saw the mess, but enough extra steps are involved that I decided to do it after the tower gaskets are replaced and everything works. non-interference safety net for the rookie mechanic.
 
#19 ·
If you have a Car Quest nearby or a place that carries Victor Reinz gaskets they have a nice cam tower set that includes 2 metal cam tower gaskets, 2 valve cover gaskets and 8 grommets for the valve cover screws. All for about $18, this is much cheaper than buying the 2 sets by themselves. Just an FYI also Car quest is where I buy my Beck Arnley seals, they work very good.
 
#22 ·
1) The pics ARE there, I discovered. Ya just gotta ckick on the empty box and they show up in a Photocucket window.

2) I finally figured out what TSRM stands for. More importantly, I realize that if the link to it was stickied on the FAQ, and if people looked there first, it would save half of the inane questions here. Hmmm.
 
#24 ·
please forgive my laziness, but I've been very anti-photobucket for the last several months due to their constant changes and lessening the amount of space for free accounts, causing one account to completely shut down w/o notice. I just can't bring myself to deal with the hassle atm. Probably will start using imageshack more and more. The thing about photo sharing sites is, you never know when they WILL go down permanently.
 
#26 ·
Here's a copy of the entire write-up Tanya made with the pic links fixed. I'm about to do this to my car. Thanks Tanya for the write up! :thumbsup:

TANYA'S Cam Tower Gasket Replacement

Takes anywhere from 8-12 hours to do this, including the time the car has to sit for the sealant to cure (I prefer closer to 16 hours for sealant curing however)

*click on pics to make big*
So anyway you start by opening the hood


Start by removing the obvious stuff. The accelorator bracket, miscellenous hoses, intake, etc.


Pull the valve covers and upper timing cover


Now you don't HAVE to pull the plug wires, I only did because I was going to clean them, but 4 out of 6 of mine broke.
Anyway, pull the coil wire, put car in neutral and rotate the crankshaft to TDC and make sure the cams are at their timing marks (also pull the distributor cap to make sure the rotor is pointing at #1 or you're gonna be in trouble)


Loosen the cam gears w/o disturbing timing and remove the timing belt.


Remove the upper rear timing cover. Don't forget to get off the remaining gasket material on the backside.





Now, remove the bolts from the cam tower in sequence as is shown here:
Cam Tower Sequence



Remove rocker arms and lash adjusters, but keep them in order to their respective cylinders.




Before installing the lash adjusters back in the head when re-assembling, be sure to bleed them well in lightweight oil.


Intake side cam tower is more of a pain. Unbolt the throttle body and move it out of the way. Unplug distributor.


Now do everything the same as the exhaust tower, same bolt removal sequence.

Now I told my husband to use a little bit of sealant on the gaskets, but I suppose he forgot because I was in town when he did this part. Guess I'll find out if they leak w/o it soon enough.
***edit* they did start leaking again, HIGHLY recommended to use some RTV sealant/gasket maker on the gaskets, not a huge bunch, just a thing spread should suffice***


When putting the cam towers back on, try using a little bit of grease to hold the rocker arms in place, because they're easily knocked off.


I also lubed the cams up as well because we had to let the engine sit overnight because we couldn't finish with no light.

Now here I made my own "Tennesee" gaskets as they're sometimes called. You can get one of these gaskets in the upper timing cover gasket set from Felpro, but because we just bought the cam tower gaskets and nothing else I made my own. And I made TWO gaskets because I've had experience with this little bastard oil galley before, and if that thing leaks, you're in serious trouble. Better safe than sorry. This is why the car should sit overnight, to let this troublesome area and its sealant cure.




Then you put your cam gears back on, make sure they're in time (always check the rotor to make sure, or look through the oil cap opening to see if the cam hole lines up). Put the valve covers back on, replacing the grommets if you got them. (Which is recommended)



I won't say much about getting the timing belt back on except that it's an extreme pain in the ass and now I really have blood into this car. I retarded each cam gear by 1.5 teeth, then I took the timing belt tensioner pulley and pulled it all the way towards the exhaust side, then temporarily tightened it there. Then pulled the belt on, intake cam first, then exhaust. Then I loosened the tensioner pulley and pulled it tight towards the intake until the belt was tight and the slack pulled the cam gears into time.

The obviously you put everything else back on, hoses, throttle body, intake, etc.

Before you try to start the car, don't be dumb like me and forget to plug the distributor back in. That could lead to a lot more pain and suffering, heh



*note* any steps that may have been left out can be located in the online TSRM. And of course also the cam tower bolt torque specs HERE.
 
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