Positive Pressure Induction System

Ahh,
That's about what I was envisioning.

I'll bet you used a setscrew against the flat on the camshaft's rotor tip to hold it in place.

 

rsvmille676 came over to help with the valve springs yesterday. We changed out 5 sets of valve springs, with occasional stops to make mods to the valve spring compressor tool. Specificly I modified it to use the body of a ValveMaster valve keeper tool. See:

http://www.toyotool.com/valvemaster_instructions.htm

I'm currently further modifying the spring compressor tool go give a more consistent mechanical advantage, make selecting the correct pivot point easy, & permit switching between the ValveMaster body & the cylindrical cage I previously machined.. I think this will go a long way towards speeding things up.

I must say that the Valvemaster makes removing the valve keepers A LOT EASIER than just using a spring compressor & a pencil magnet. However, the guy demoing it on youtube has got to be a gorilla. We found that we usually had th whack the tool's end to get the keepers to break loose from the retainer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFTaeu4GIPo

So far we've had retainer insertion work about 5 out of 9 trys. When it does work, you can feel everything snap into place. When it doesn't you usually find one of the keepers has slipped too far into the retainer & the other is sitting on top of the retainer(sigh). At that point best thing is to start over by using the tool to remove the keeper. I'm hoping that my improved leverage & pivot selection will improve insertion consistency.

The problem with needing to give the tool a whack is the front bank: there's no room to swing a hammer. I'm hoping that a whack isn't really needed. I suspect you just need keep the spring compressed long enough for the oil's surface tension to release the retainer. That is what I think happened the 1st couple of times I used the ValveMaster tool.

Oh, yes, my Tilton clutch came in. It's a high-tech sculpture!

I'll post some pix when I get a chance.

 

New valve spring tool works like a charm. Got the stuck keeper out of #3s right intake valve retainer & installed both keepers. BTW, Engine is locked on PM1-4.

Moved on to changeing #2 remaining cyl of rear bank. Pressureized it & compressed the spring with my valvemaster tool. Then things started happening fast! Valve opened, air blew the paper towel plug out of the intake port, tool kicked back & I saw 2 keepers jump up into the air followed by the retainer & both springs!


Never had a kick back like that on any of the other valves when removing the keepers. luckily everything was caught by the towels I'd spread all over everything 'just in case', except for 1 missing keeper(sigh).

Finally decided the keeper must have fallen down, either onto something lower down, or hopefully onto the floor. Disconnected the short air hose from #2 so I could raise the car.

Nope, not on floor, & couldn't find it on the differential, frame rails, top of tranny, or engine mounts.

Scratched my head for awhile, then pulled the sheet metal 'air scoop' that cools the header area. I've had it collect dropped things many times. YUP! that's where the keeper had landed, along with an amazing amount of gravel, twigs, & a couple of badly rusted 6mm nuts & washers.

OOPS!!!!!
Lowered the car & went to install the new valve seal. As soon as I tried to slip the seal over the valve stem, the valve vanished with a slight 'tink'. The valve had dropped down out of the valve guide into the cylinder.

That's when I realized I'd forgotten to repressurize the cylinder.

Boresighting thru the valve guide I could still see the valve stem's end. AHAH, realized my small telescoping magnet would just fit thru the guide.

It did fit nicely, & even touched the valve stem, BUT WOULDN'T PICK IT UP. Definite proof the QV valves are SS, not what I wanted to learn by experience tho.

PANIC!!!
Visions of having to pulling the head were running thru my mind. Followed by all sorts of dubiously feasable alternatives.

Probably the dumbest alternative, but one that looked like it might work was that since the valve stem was still inline with the valve guide, maybe I could rotate the engine 180 degrees & the piston would just push the valve back into the guide.

Looked thru the intake port to see just how well the valve was centered on the guide. It sure looked well centered!

At that point I realized that the intake port was large enough so that there was a good chance my longest needle nosed pliers could reach in & grab the stem.

Sure'nuff, I was able to pick up the valve by it's stem!!! By looking down the valve guide I was then able to reinsert the stem & work it up into the guide!!!

There I was, the valve was being held up by my pliars, & I looked around for the the air hose to repressurize the cylinder. The hose was down on the floor(DUHHH!)

Glancing around I saw the new valve seal all ready to be installed. Just what I needed, something that would fit snugly around the stem to keep the valve in place. Slipped the seal down over the stem, pressed it into place, made sure the stem wasn't going to slip out of it & came in for a stiff drink!

Wish I'd taken pictures down thru the guide & into the port. But,under extreme panic,you can't think of everything.

BACK TO WORK:
Still got to change the intake springs #2 & #5 thru 8. I'm not looking forward to working on that front bank!

 

Good point, The front bank is already at half-stroke (71mm stroke/2) = 35.5 mm. That's enough to clear the piston when tapping & yet keep the valve in the guide if it slips down. Should have set it on PM5-8 while doing the front bank.

Interestingly enough, It doesn't appear that I need to do a hammer tap after all, just compress the spring to the point just before the valve starts to open & hold it compressed for about 30 seconds & the keepers come free.

I've done this a couple of times with american engines & never had a valve want to move. But then I never stupidly took the air pressure off either.

 

Here's a picture of the '94-'06 FORD cam position sensor. The trigger is a cup shaped with one side missing. I figure I'll adapt an original trigger to fit on the end of the cam, & machine a housing to fit on the distributor mount & hold the sensor.
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rsvmille676 came over to help with the valve springs again today. - THANKS Scotty, greatly appreciated.

We got the last 2 sets of front bank springs & seals in, then continued on & did the rear bank. Things were really tight. but because the valve spring compressor could be mounted on either side of a cam journal, we were always able to come up with a combination of tool mounting & pinning that worked.

We didn't have room to smack the end of the valve master with a hammer. Luckily I discovered that isn't necessary. Just use the valvemaster to compress the spring down until the valve is just about to open, then rock the tool side by side. The keepers almost always pop out into the valvemaster where it's magnet keeps them together. Sometimes only 1 keeper pops out, in which case you clear it out of the work area & repeat with the valvemaster.

The dipstick is a PITA, kept getting in the way of the valve spring compressor tool's handle. But we managed. Also the clearance between the drip pan under the window & the tools handle was minimal so we often had to pick a hole combination that gave about 1/2 the normal leverage, but at least you could gat your hand onto the tool.

In the end we used a 'cheater' a couple of times. The cheater was a piece of 1" steel box slipped over the handle to extend it by about 8". No substitute for leverage!

WOW!!! I've been focusing on this phase of the project for so long I've got to sit back & figure out what to do next. Most likely it'll be to install the cams, SMG2's new cam pulley system & dial-in the cam belts. Tediuos, but not particularly difficult.

 

Badman, JesseJames, & Ducatiman came over to help today.

We removed the old cam cover gasket remnants, used a dial indicator to relocate TDC & re-zero my digital degree wheel in prep for reinstalling cams & dialing them in.

The small oil drain holdes behind the cam seal housings were clogged again. Drilled them out from about 2mm to 5mm. Also cleaned out the oil drain holes behind the distributor mounts. I'd previously drilled them to 5mm.

Thanks for the donuts, coffee, & help guys!!!

 

Had a gang over today.
Goal was to convert to SMG2's new belt system. Laid the parts out, but couldn't find the new ring nuts. Must have searched for 30 mins. Decided to start w/o them.

BTW, I have one of the 1st 5 or so new belt system prototype cam gear sets that Scott had made, so they may differ slightly in fit & finish from current production.

First double checked the new cam drive gear nose length against my old gears. They matched so could go forward.

Also took a good luck at the ring nuts & the threads looked very good. Decided to use them temporarily. I can easily replace them later in the project.
The new cam drive gears are a light press fit onto the cam drive shafts. They were just tight enough so that they had to be tapped to get them to move. This meant that you couldn't wiggle the gear to feel the keyway onto the shaft's key. It took 4 or 5 tries to get the 1st gear to line up & slide over the key. In the process the key made a couple of about 0.5mm deep notches on each side of the keyway. The last try the gear was dead on. A few taps put it down far enough to get the nut on about 3 threads. After that used the nut to seat the gear.

Part of the problem was that tapping the gear would cause the shaft to rotate as the gear was being driven against the gear on the crankshaft. So I machined a sleeve to go in place of the damper and used the damper bolt to keep the crank cam drive gear from moving.

The 2nd cam drive gear lined up with the keyway the 1st try! Went on just like the other new gear.

As tight as these gears fit onto the shaft & keyway, I actually doubt that the nut is really necessary. It's going to take some doing to get them off the next time I have to change the timing drive bearings.

I did NOT change the timing drive bearings because I changed them about 5 years ago & there was no sign of the grease weeping out of them. I put them on the list of things to be changed in 5 years tho.

Next will be installing the new cam gears & instaling the cams & cam seals with my new quad rings for the cam seal housings.

 

Spent most of today cleaning up the cam seal housings, & their mounting area on the heads. Especially painful was getting old 518 out of the O-ring grooves. I haven't found a solvent that will attack 518!

I also put white paint on each side of the cam marks to make them highly visable. As usual I slopped some into one of the marks & had to wait for it to fully dry so I could scrape it out(sigh).

Now I need to paint the cam cap marks so they're easy to see.

Also painted the housing seal mounting surface with 518 & pressed the seals in.

After a lot of searching, I've found some Viton quad rings that fit the cam seal grooves. I'm going to use them as they should seal quite a bit better & be less likely to get pinched than the round o-rings!

 

In my preceding post I mentioned quad rings for sealing the cam housings. Here are a few pix I just found on my camera.

Seals work by surface tension of oil trapped under the lips. A polished surface won't retain the necessary oil film. The 1st & 2nd pix show breaking the glaze on the cam's sealing surface with 800 grit wet sandpaaper, and the resultant satin textured finish. Note the white paint I added on each side of the cam gear flange timing mark to highlight it. I also painted each side of the cam's timing mark that aligns with the cam cap.


The last picture shows a cam housing with a quad ring ready to be inserted into the head.

Note how well the quad rings fill the grove, and how each ring seals against 2 places in each of the groove's top, bottom, and side surfaces! A regular o-ring only seals in one place on each surface! Also, the quad ring's smaller lobes will more readily conform to any surface irregularities.
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I started by making some tools to making changing cam gear pin locations easier & quicker while dialing in cam timing:
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These pix show the cam gears temporarily installed & pinned with the cam timing tools.

Yes, those are the new cam gears I got from SMG2's pilot run a few years ago. This is my 1st major since I got them.
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I removed the damper & replaced it with a section of pipe that's slightly longer than the portion of the damper that is clamped by the thru-bolt. The pipe section both ensures the gear that turns the cam drive gear shafts is solidly in place, and provides a surface to clamp the timing wheel against. Actually, I inserted the heavy washer that retains the damper behind the timing wheel to extend it outwards an additional 5 mm or so.

Couldn't use my 12" degree wheel as it interfered with the front manifold's collector running just above the frame rail. The 8" wheel fits. Actually, the 8" wheel slightly drags on the oil pressure regulator cap, but a little grease will ensure smooth movement.

I made a metal pointer that mounts to one of the alternator mounting studs. You can see it's yellow triangular tip pointing to TDC.

Now I just need to slip the tensioners & belts on, setup the dial indicator, & find someone to turn the engine & read the degree wheel while I watch the dial indicator.

I'm going to start with the standard Euro QV cam timingn shown in the 2nd image.

Note that the front bank timing will be shifted 90 degrees relative the rear bank's TDC. I haven't seen this little tidbit mentioned in any of the manuals. Guess it's supposed to be intiuitive.
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Whether or not you get some oil dripping depends on several things. Starting with how well the drain-back flap in the filter's bottom seals & how steady your hands are when removing the filter.

If the drain-back works well, then the filter will be full of oil up to the internal standpipe's top. Any slight tilting of the filter while removing can spill oil out. If it's working well & your hand is steady, then no spilled oil.

If the drainback valve works very poorly, the filter may have drained before you removed it. If it's working poorly, and the filter isn't drained, then some spillage will occurr.

I've had good luck with Baldwin's also, but my hands aren't quite steady enough to avoid occasionally spilling a teaspoon or so of oil while lifting the filter up & out. My luck with UFI & Fram filters has varied.

Then there's the case where the filter is just plain stuck on to the point that all attempts to get it off with a filter wrench just severely deform the case. Last resort is to punch a long screwdriver or pry bar thru the filter.

However, Chris & my issue is that we just don't like the risk the filter's current location imposes. In my case I have to relocate the filter as the throttle body & air filter will occupy the current filter's space.

 

Thanks Chris,
Let's see if I can get ready by then. Will let you know if it looks like it's going to work out.