Camshaft Oil Seal

[Roy Lewington 36]

One of my winter jobs is to replace the front camshaft oil seals (910 engine) which I have been assured can be done with the engine in place.   I see they are only torqued to 25 ftlb but will I have a problem releasing the bolt?  So I have some questions:

1 Can it be done, engine in place.

2 Can I buy a cam locking tool.

3 Would a wedge shaped piece of wood tapped in between the two cams sprockets work.

4 Should I make a bar to bolt between the two sprockets.

Any advice gratefully received.    Thanks Roy.

[Sparky 2,691]

Yes, it could be done, but I wouldn't.  But if you must, lock the cams well, hopefully the sprockets come off easily (I've had a couple of bad ones) and try hard not to damage the face on seal removal, and hope you get the new seals seated properly.  There's precious little room to do the job properly.

As you will have the belt off, why not use the opportunity to do it on the bench by removing the towers?  And the bonus of a valve clearance check/adjust, reseal faces etc?

[ekwan 61]

On 30/11/2019 at 16:48, Roy Lewington said:

One of my winter jobs is to replace the front camshaft oil seals (910 engine) which I have been assured can be done with the engine in place.   I see they are only torqued to 25 ftlb but will I have a problem releasing the bolt?  So I have some questions:

1 Can it be done, engine in place.

2 Can I buy a cam locking tool.

3 Would a wedge shaped piece of wood tapped in between the two cams sprockets work.

4 Should I make a bar to bolt between the two sprockets.

Any advice gratefully received.    Thanks Roy.

Although not the preferred method, you could use method 3 to remove the camshaft pulley locking bolts. However, getting those pulleys off could be a bit of a touch & go affair. Hence the advice of getting the camshaft tower off the cylinder head. 

When installing the oil seals, it would be preferable to have the proper installation tool, or alternatively, have someone machine one out for you out of a piece of nylon.

[Roy Lewington 36]

I hadn't really considered taking the towers off but it is a sensible option.  However the car is running really well, no tappet noise, no oil leaks from the cam covers so it seems like a lot of extra work for a £5 seal.  I'll try doing it in place and see how I get on.  Thanks Roy.

[Roy Lewington 36]

Job done.  I removed the auxiliary belts and lined the cam belt up. I tapped a soft nylon wedge into the crank pulley housing to prevent the cambelt moving and also zip-tied the belt to the distributor drive to avoid any ignition timing issues.  With the cambelt tensioner slackened I was able to ease the belt away from the pulleys.  I made a cam locking tool from a couple of soft nylon washers as the pulleys being alloy would be easy to damage.   The tightening torque is only 25ftlb so I was hoping to undo the retaining bolt without too much trouble. All ok, it released  and the cam sprocket came off without a problem.    Using a cut down drill and a cable drive I had just  enough room to drill 2 small holes in the old oil seal. I fitted self-tappers and eased the whole thing gently out.  It was not damaged but had gone very hard. The new seal I fitted using a large socket and wound  it in using the cam sprocket retaining bolt.    The old trick of putting bearings etc in the freezer before fitting doesn't work with oil seals as  the rubber goes too hard and is easily damaged.

I've also had my exhaust bracket powder coated {Autoblast in Sussex 01903 877711) nice job at a good price.

[jonwat 342]

Good job, never thought of drilling the oil seal & inserting self tappers to remove it before (always used brute force myself)