Hi All, I'm adjusting the valve clearances on my 328 and noticed these reference marks on the camshaft lip seal /o ring housing. I can't find any reference to what they are there for. Anyone got a suggestion? Thanks for any help in advance. P.S. Whilst in there I found one of the O rings completely chewed up. The belts aren't long changed, so rather than do them again I changed the o ring by slicing a new one with a scalpel, loosened off camshaft, threaded the new o ring through then super glued it together. The join is in the 12.00 position shown in the picture. I figure that once squeezed in, even if the super glue degrades it will be oil tight. I'll replace it correctly next time the belts come off. Am I mad? Image Unavailable, Please Login
Those marks are not "factory". No idea why you'd make them given that the seal housing is free to rotate. Looks like someone thought they had a good idea....which wasn't!
Weird, someones given a lot of time to make them. I haven't had these housings off, so don't know whats inside. Are the internals completely symmetrical? No oil return hole gallery's to line up etc?
Morning all, Lain is right, those are not factory marks, as a matter of fact, when you remove these housings there are no marks. John.
Great, thanks for the clarification. There's a groove in these housings on the side that mates with the head (which is just about detectable in the pic) Is the housing supposed to be positioned so the groove sits at the lowest point, to facilitate oil drainage? Maybe someones added the marks to assist in lining this up? Image Unavailable, Please Login
Here is a slightly better view of the groove with the housing rotated slightly. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Correct. One of the causes of oil leakage in that area was oil trapped next to the seal with no drainage. Eventually the factory put a deep groove for that reason and put out a TSB calling for the seal housings to be replaced with the later version. This all happened during 348 production. Seal housings were expensive (NLA now) so many of us filed a deep groove during services. The factory method for alignment was a similar mark to be aligned with a corresponding mark on the valve cover. I just file a small line that should be placed directly upward. Very good factory recommended modification that anyone servicing these cars should be aware of.
