They Said it Can't be Fixed - A Journey to the Inside of a Mercedes Bluetec

So I totally forgot to poke around in WIS tonight, sorry.  I was only out there for about 45 minutes, mainly to put a bunch of crap in the Dumpster, but I'll be back out tomorrow for a bit and I'll remember to look then.  I'm writing myself a PostIt right now.

There.  PostIt is written and affixed to my work laptop.

In other news, in that 45 minutes I had to myself tonight, I did go ahead and take my angle gauge apart.  Stupidly, I didn't take any pictures, but let's see what I can come up with here:

You've got this gauge, see:

And the bottom looks like this, right?

Well, that clear cover on the top is supposed to turn with the shaft in the middle while the black plastic part on the bottom uses the little allen-wrench-looking thing to keep it still.  To tell what the angle is, you have the numbers written on the black plastic part with the indicator line being printed on the clear plastic part.  The numbers stay still because of that allen-wrench-looking thing holding the bottom in place and the indicator moves around.  The problem I was having was that the shaft wasn't turning the clear plastic part meaning that there was no indication of how many degrees the bolt had been turned.

Figuring I had nothing to lose, I pulled that little circlip off the bottom and the whole thing came apart.  Turns out that there is a spring washer that goes between the clear plastic top and the dial that's attached to the black plastic bottom.  In my case, that spring washer slid out of the groove of the shaft a bit and was stuck and not acting as a spring anymore.  Its function is to push that plastic indicator cover against the 1/2" drive female side so that there's enough friction there to make it turn with the shaft.  Once I removed the spring washer and put it back in its groove, the indicator was working perfectly once more.

So now that I've interrupted this build thread for a build thread about a torque angle gauge, I can get to the meat of the update which is that I have completed the torque sequence on all 16 head bolts.  And then I was out of time and had to head back home.

In reply to Mr. Lee :

Yeah. Between this thread and the mazduce unicorn thread I'm running far far away from a modem MB. Been shopping diesel SUV's to replace my gmt800 and MB's have surfaced on the radar. Nope. Nada. Ain't happening. What a journey man. Looks like you're well on your way to having it back together. 

I wanted a Touareg TDI/Cayenne/Q7, but they are actually pretty solid, pretty fixable, have a strong tech following on the TDI forum... And therefore are worth about twice as much as an equivalent M-B. I've also heard that the diesel BMW X5 is also a solid vehicle, and also hold value.

So yeah, save up your pennies and buy a diesel that is not an MB SUV.

After consulting WIS and looking at the cam retainer SST tool set, I've concluded that the factory cam holder-downer SST is very nice, but far more than is necessary to get the job done. I will make a cam holder-downer using some straps of 1/8" AL, with a lining strip of polyethylene (milk jug) to reduce friction between cam journal & holder-downer SST. Pics to come (if it actually works).

No expense spared for this ScheisseWagen!

I did have some time to actually review the procedures and pictures.  It seems to me that the whole thing with the hold down tools is more about being able to turn the cams than anything else.  I did find a set of hold downs that isn't hideously priced and I'm considering getting those.  Although they want to charge me almost $20 to ship them which seems...  excessive.  Maybe there's some metalworking equivalent to a forstner bit that I could chuck up into my drill press and attack a bit of aluminum bar stock.  I guess that's a problem for later, but later's going to get here pretty quickly at this rate.

Today marked a bit of a project landmark for me.  Whenever I'm taking something apart like this, I use zip-top bags to organize the various bolts and other small parts.  I always know that the reasembly process is well and truly underway when I stop filling new bags with parts and start throwing used baggies away.  While I did have a "baggie system" going with the valves, springs, retainers, and keepers, that was a short-term thing while I was doing the heads.  This afternoon, I went searching for the four bolts that go through the front of the heads and in to the block.  Those are my first discarded baggies, so we're officially on the path.

Work was stupidly busy today so I wasn't able to get much else done, but I did start playing around with the exhaust manifold studs.  You know I can't find a torque spec for those studs anywhere?  I'm thinking about 20nm is probably good, but I'm open to suggestions.  The pinch nuts have a spec of 20nm, so I figure that would be alright to have them match.  I'm going to go ahead and get the manifolds on next while I wait on the parts from the dealer.

Another thing that I've been thinking about is the oil pump chain.  Since the new chain that I got with the kit has a master link that needs to be attached, I'm thinking that I may just re-use the original chain.  I have no reason to believe that it's faulty in any way and I don't have a chain tool.

To make a large hole in aluminum, a holesaw of the correct size or slightly larger would do the job.

I hear you on the baggies. Haven't finished off any of mine yet, but did get to stuff 2 oil soaked egg cartons in the woodstove after all the valves, springs, followers were back in their heads.

The M8 exhaust nuts on a VW TDI are torqued to 18ft-lbs/25Nm.

The smash together chain master link makes me uncomfortable. The factory assembled continuous chain seems like a pretty bombproof part. The long-azz timing chain can develop serious stretch (wear), but the much shorter OP chain can't stretch that much.

If getting exhaust manifold studs for this thing was as simple as just popping up to my FLAPS, I wouldn't have spent the time but it would appear from some website searching that - of course - they use a stud that isn't anything that anybody can get.  I could have ordered up some from Autohaus, but $30 after shipping and having to wait a week or so before they'd show up just wasn't thrilling me.  So I had to embark upon the adventure of removing the copper pinch nuts from the studs so I could re-use them. 

The studs, not the nuts.

Most of them came off without too much of a fight, but there were three of them which had to be torched until they glowed red before they'd break loose.  Of course that took forever, but when I was finished I could do this:

Once those were in, it was pretty easy to do this:

I started to gather some momentum when I did this:

But when I started to do this, all my momentum crashed to a halt:

I guess this is another milestone:  The first missing bolt adventure.

There was a zip-top bag that was marked for the right side exhaust manifold heat shield, but all that was in it was the 10mm nut that attaches to the stud on the bracket that bolts to the bottom of the manifold.  There should be another 5 small bolts that attach the top of the shield to the head, but I can't seem to find them.  The bag didn't have any extra holes, and I found one appropriately-sized bolt on the fender, but the others seem to be missing.  After searching for rather long while, I called it quits for the night.  I may just need to see about buying some replacements, but I'm going to proceed for now - those bolts can be put in at a later time.

Another discovery that I made was that neither the block kit nor the head kit came with the water pump gasket.  So I need to order that up.  I need to follow-up with the dealer's parts department to see if my things are ready to be picked up yet.  I tried calling on Saturday morning, but got their voice mail.  I'm betting that the water pump gasket is something they'll have in stock for me - it appears to be used on every vehicle they've sold in the last 20 years or something crazy like that.

My short-term to-do list, then, is to harass the dealer for the parts; if those parts are available, replace the #6 conrod bolts, get the splash plate and oil pump installed, thread the timing chain and oil pump chain, and get the timing cover re-installed along with the oil pan.  If the dealer doesn't have my parts yet, I'm going to see about getting the intake manifolds installed and mounting the turbo.

The RH exh heat shield has other stuff captured with all the bolts. There is a heavy sheetmetal bracket on top of the shield at the back 3, and a bracket that slips under the front 2 and extends forward past the front of the head. I'll get a pic tomorrow. The bolts on the LH shield are all short, compared to the RH shield with the extra layers of metal. The missing bolts may be in a baggie with the brackets.

The timing chain kit showed up a few days ago. It was genuine MB stuff, AFAIK. The chain looked exactly the same. and the plastic guides had the exact same markings, except the MB name was ground off. Today was the day to install it. The stock retainer straps were used to hold down the cams, it worked satisfactorily. Getting the new (8mm shorter) chain installed was a real bear. It took hours. I can't even tell you how I finally finagled it into place, there were so many attempts that didn't quite work out. I'm a little concerned because the chain is tight, even with no hydraulic tensioner installed. All the timing marks check out, the correct gears are in the correct place, the parts are OEM German parts, so there seems to be no choice but to run it.

The exhaust manifolds & heat shields are installed, but not the intakes. The top end gasket set only had 1 intake manifold gasket, so another intake gasket is ordered from NAPA for $6, but will take a few days to get here. "Hurry up & wait" should be the name of this project.

In reply to FJ40Jim :

You know, I was looking at a baggie that I labeled "bracket, rear-rt head" and thinking that the shape was very close to the markings left on the heat shield.  While I am not the most rational person in the whole wide world (and I present this thread as evidence, QED), I cannot fathom how I would have removed 5 bolts and a nut from something and then labeled a bag for "rt exh man heat shield" and put only that single nut in it.  I am typically more fastidious than that when it comes to disassembly.  But then, it might have been Drinking Thursdays that day, who knows?

I noticed the same thing with my Febi guides.  Putting them side by side with the Merc ones, the only difference is that there are long blank ovals on the Febis where the Merc has an A642 number stamped along with their logo.  Other than that, all of the other markings are compeltely identical.  Not surprising, but definitely interesting.  Your tale of woe and struggle getting the chain in place doesn't give me warm fuzzies, though.  I can't remember what it was like taking it apart anymore, but I was hoping it would be easier.  Actually, I wonder if it would work better to install the chain first and then put the guides in...  hmm...

Just as a data point for anybody with the same question as me: A new Febi chain, made in germany, measures 903-904mm when hung from a nail with a link flat across the top & bottom.

Compared to the used chain that was not worn out, but measured 911mm, the new chain is 8mm shorter, actually a total of 16mm (5/8") over the full length of the chain. A 16mm longer chain would have just fallen into place. I ended up tossing the guides into their areas before getting the last pulley levered up onto the nose of the cam. Then the guide bolts could be installed, then the guide pins.

Here's the RH heat shield with the additional brackets on top of rear shield and under front of shield.

In reply to FJ40Jim :

Ah, thank you!  I had my hands on the baggies with those brackets in them last night!

Every time I think I might want a newer Mercedes this thread or Seth's pops up and reminds me I hate myself but not this much. 

In reply to Wally (Forum Supporter) :

From a young age, I always wanted to be someone that other people could look to for an example.  I never imagined that it would be more along the lines of "whatever you do, DON'T do what Bill did because look how THAT turned out!", but sometimes you just have to play to your own strengths.

No work done yesterday due to my middlest kid's birthday and my oldest kid taking a moment to remind my wife and I just how much of an shiny happy person teenagers can be.  But I did get an email that my parts were ready at the dealer.

On my way home from picking up kids from school, I stopped in at the local dealer and the gentleman at the parts counter tracked down my box with the bolts, seal, and sprocket.  Since I was there anyway, I asked him to see if they had the water pump gasket in stock and they did.  He said, "How about $7.42?".  Now, the list price for the gasket is $7.00.  The price on the parts website is $5.37, so there's roughly a 25 point discount off list for going through the Internet versus walking up to the counter.  I held up my phone and said "well, how about $5.37 plus whatever tax is?"  And, as expected, he told me that he couldn't do that price since that was the Internet price and basically, I was here in person.  He did say that I could just order it on my phone right there and set it for pickup and then he could hand it to me and I'd be on my way.

We stared at each other for a brief second and he said something to the effect of "yeah, that's kind of dumb".  I nodded and proceeded to place the online order on my phone.  I was about halfway through the process when he told me to just forget it and he'd ring it up at the Internet price.  Like I told him, I know it's only about two bucks but the way this thing is nickle-and-diming me, every bit I can save is helping out.  To his credit, of course, I could tell that he knew the policy was dumb but it wasn't exactly his idea.  Given the overall experience, though, ordering online and picking up at the dealer is probably what I'll be doing for any further OEM parts that I need - it seems like the 25-off-list is pretty well in line with the various Internet retailers for parts that have the three-pointed-star on them and I can just pick it up myself. 

Oh and while I was there, I surveyed the merchandise section for a bit.  Still absolutely nothing for sale that would betray the fact that there are these guys named Lewis and George that drive some pretty nifty racecars for them.  Or that there are some pretty bitchin' sportscars that have that three-pointed star on their grille.  I'd think that, as an AMG dealer, you'd want to at least make some sort of nod towards your brand's competition performance, but then again, every time I'm in that dealership I am reminded that these are not my people.

wae said:

In reply to Wally (Forum Supporter) :

From a young age, I always wanted to be someone that other people could look to for an example.  I never imagined that it would be more along the lines of "whatever you do, DON'T do what Bill did because look how THAT turned out!", but sometimes you just have to play to your own strengths.

I was able to get a little bit of time to run out to the shop yesterday evening so that means I have updates in the morning!  First off, let's check out the new goodies:

First things first, I needed to replace the conrod bolt that I managed to mangle before it got its last full 90 degree turn.  Excercising an uncharacteric level of care and caution, I removed the old bolts and put them next to the new ones.  It's kind of cool to see how much they've actually stretched and, honestly, I think it would have been okay.  But I feel a little bit better putting some brand new Mercedes bolts in there because we all know that Mercedes never makes a bad bolt of any type!  Anyway, here's the difference between the old and new:

Honestly, the shadow from the lighting makes it kind of hard to see, but those old bolts are just a couple millimeters longer than the new, but they've got about the same amount of stretch.  Anyway, that's done so I can move along.

The new crank sprocket went on, and I went on a search for the original oil pump chain and got that installed.  That part was easy at least.

Once that was in place, I dug around and found the baggie with the oil pump shield bolts and the oil pump bolts and got those installed.

The trash needs to be taken out, but it's pretty fun to see it overflowing with parts boxes and used bolt baggies!

I am running in to two problems now that are going to be slowing me down.  First of all, I have all the parts cataloged and bagged and in totes, most of which are stored inside der Scheißwagen itself.  But there are so many parts and baggies that it's like an adult version of Memory trying to remember which bag in which tote I saw something when I need to go get it.  There isn't enough space to just put everything out in the open for easy viewing, so I've started trying to co-locate parts that go with other parts in the totes.  For example, I moved the cams, sprockets, valve covers, lifters, rockers, and other associated parts into one tote so that all that stuff is in one place.  That should help a little bit, but I'm expecting some of these jobs to start taking a little bit longer as I hunt for stuff.  It's a lot easier when all the bolts and parts are brand-new and in the shipping box right in front of me!  Now the upside here is that the more I re-assemble, the fewer things in totes I have to deal with, so it's kind of a problem that will eventually fix itself.

The second problem - and this is one I'm happy to have! - involves the motor itself.  The thing is getting really top-heavy and is really hard to spin around on the engine stand.  The good news on that front is that my next job will probably be to put the oil pan back on.  Once that's done, I won't have any need to rotate it around.

While I was waiting for WIS to load the page that has the torque sequence for the connecting rod bolts (it's a really old laptop, okay?), I decided to pop the motor mounts off real fast just to take a look.  The left side actually had two loose bolts and basically none of the goo left in it while the right side was still fully torqued and has a big block of grey goo.  I couldn't tell you how the bolts got loose in the first place, but I'm guessing that's why the goo leaked out all over the front diff.  Not sure what I'm going to do about that yet, but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

I haven't gone looking in WIS for this yet, but I am going to need to figure out how to make sure I have the bottom end timed properly.  Now that the heads are on - and there aren't any spark plug holes! - finding TDC for #1 is a little more complicated.  Before bolting the oil pump and its shield on I watched #1 from the bottom and got it set, but there's a fair amount of dwell between when it arrives at TDC and it starts going back down, probably one or two teeth worth.  I'm sure there's something in WIS to describe the procedure to clock that, but just something that I'll need to worry about.  Taking a quick look at the crank sprocket, I didn't see any markings, but they may be on the timing cover and the dampener.  I also need to make sure I have the balance shaft clocked correctly, but I know there's a procedure in there for that.

wae said:I decided to pop the motor mounts off real fast just to take a look.  The left side actually had two loose bolts and basically none of the goo left in it while the right side was still fully torqued and has a big block of grey goo.  I couldn't tell you how the bolts got loose in the first place, but I'm guessing that's why the goo leaked out all over the front diff.

The grey shmoo leaks out because the mount is not sealed to the block. There is no gasket, just two pieces of metal bolted closely together. As the temperature cycles up & down, shmoo is pushed out, then air is sucked in. Repeat for years, until truck is covered in grey goop.

I haven't gone looking in WIS for this yet, but I am going to need to figure out how to make sure I have the bottom end timed properly.  Now that the heads are on - and there aren't any spark plug holes! - finding TDC for #1 is a little more complicated.

The injector hole is still open in the top of the head and it points straight down at the top center of the piston.  TDC can be verified using something non-marring (I used 18" long piece of 3/16" AL tube) in the injector hole to feel the piston coming to TDC.

When #1 is at TDC, the rear crank dowel is straight up, like so:

Before bolting the oil pump and its shield on I watched #1 from the bottom and got it set, but there's a fair amount of dwell between when it arrives at TDC and it starts going back down, probably one or two teeth worth.  I'm sure there's something in WIS to describe the procedure to clock that, but just something that I'll need to worry about.  Taking a quick look at the crank sprocket, I didn't see any markings, but they may be on the timing cover and the dampener.  I also need to make sure I have the balance shaft clocked correctly, but I know there's a procedure in there for that.

Yes, the really accurate marking is on the balancer and lines up with the mark on the frt cover. Slide the clean front cover in place on the 2 alignment dowels, then slide the balancer on to verify that the marks line up. This pic actually shows the marks off by 2 degrees. Close enough for what we're doing.

The notch on the balance weight goes straight up. The chain teeth are pretty coarse, so if it's off by one tooth, it is visually obvious.

And all the cams line up like so. Note the position of the 'knock holes' at the outer edge of the gears, all facing the same direction.

Hope this helps. Also, don't take my word for it, do double check against the WIS or the Chrysler sprinter/cherokee OM642 service manual. The Mopar FSM is far easier to read & understand than WIS.

Mopar FSM PDF can be downloaded here:

https://app.box.com/s/q9fehwjsxq1t7x0q6kyi

In reply to FJ40Jim :

Awesome!  I can also appreciate that the torque specs in the Mopar guide are in both old money and new money.  I've been having to do a lot more math than I'm comfortable with.

I figured that there would be markings somewhere.  I've already educated myself in the ways of the cam timing back when this mess started a couple years ago, and it didn't seem possible that they'd mark the cams and not the crank somehow!

Forgot to mention, the special tools.

Cam holddown. The stock cam holddown straps were greased up & installed, worked fine. Can be seen in previous posts, with red&tacky(tm) grease oozing out.

Cam turning tool, used to position the cams in the RH cyl head. LH head cams are all valves closed, so no springs are trying to move the cam.

Once the cams are positioned, a camshaft locking tool is needed to prevent the open valve springs from rolling the cam. Mine looks like this:

I think that's it for SST's.

I haven't been able to get over to the shop to actually work on anything for about a week or so, but I was able to put in some time here at home.  The water situation is a little odd at the workshop: There's no hot water at all, all I have is a toilet and a small hand washing sink, and we're limited to 1 HCF of water per quarter.  So for the hard-core scrubbing of parts, it makes sense to bring things home and use the wash tub in the basement.  I've started with the upper half of the oil pan:

This really would be have been fine had I just removed all the old sealant and cleaned up the mating surfaces a little bit.  But once you start scrubbing something like that, it's hard to define a stopping point.  I could continue to scrub this further, and I've considered putting it into the blasting cabinet and getting some walnut shells or something, but this is to the "good enough" point.

I have the lower part of the oil pan and the timing cover to scrub up as well.  The way fuel prices are going, I'm getting even more motivation to finish putting this together!  At the current prices, the Excursion (which, let's be honest, drives better than a Mercedes in my experience!) is costing me $0.45/mile in gas while der Scheißwagen would only be around $0.30/mile in diesel.  I've got to make two runs to pick up kids today and it's got to be in the truck since my wife had to go in to the office.  That's $20 I'll spend moving kids around today.  At this point, it should just be fairly simple re-assembly.  The biggest thing to do is setting the engine timing and that's just a matter of doing it.  I've already had the cams in and out a couple times while the engine was still in the truck, so that's really not a big deal, it's just a little fiddly is all.  The problems I'll need to overcome:

• The Swirl Motor.  This is a conundrum for me.  There are apparently three or four different Pierburg motors that look absolutely identical, but all have different part numbers.  I bought a replacement motor at one time and went through the pain of installing it, just to have it not work and throw the truck into limp mode.  After all this crap, I don't want to be driving around with a check engine light, so we're going to make this work.  But I am just not sure which part number I actually need since all three show up as being "right" for my vehicle.  I still have the original motor, though, so I just need to pull the MB part number off of it and see what correctly cross-references.  This is a sooner-rather-than-later thing, though, because I can't put the turbo on until I have the M55 motor in place because Mercedes is stupid.
• Wiring.  There were a few places where the wiring harness had gotten burned through and melted.  It will be pretty easy to repair those spots with the engine out.  I seem to recall that one of the connectors that got completely destroyed was a glow plug control wire, so I'll go hunting for a pigtail to splice in.  The other damage was in-line and already repaired in-situ, but I'd like to make sure it's cleaned up and in better shape.
• EGR valve.  I may want to source a used replacement.  Mine is a little bit beat up and if I can't clean up the mating surface and bolt holes, it may cause problems.  I'll have to look at it.
• Alternator.  I sold mine, so I need to source a replacement.  They're plentiful on eBay.
• Intake tube + MAF sensors.  Also sold.  Also available on eBay.
• Grille.  Yep.  Sold it.  Don't really need it to make it run, but it'd be nice to have, I think.
• DPF.  The AEM program gets me a new one, so I don't see me going and buying one to put on there.  My plan so far has to been to put a plain pipe in there where it usually goes and just deal with limp mode to get it to the dealer.
• Batteries.  I'm sure they are deader than doornails, and I'm sure I'll need the regular battery and the auxillary battery.
• The Server Farm.  I'm a bit concerned about this one, but it may be something that I just have to have the dealer do.  I'm concerned that with everything sitting this long without power if all the various computers and modules will remember themselves and each other.  If it were me, I'd have all that information stored in some sort of NVRAM so that after long periods of powered-off-ness, all that data would still be there and we'd be off to the races, no big deal.  But I really don't trust Mercedes to have done anything smart, so that may be a whole adventure.
• Engine cover.  No idea where it went.  I took it off pretty early on because one of the mounting points got melted and it just sat under the hood rattling.  If I can find one cheap, I'll pick it up.  This is absolutely not a priority.

That seems like a long list, but compared to what I've done so far, that's easy stuff!

Had a bunch going on last night, but in my running around I managed to come up with about 90 minutes that I could sneak into the shop.  I've got some dependencies that I need to work out.

The oil pan needs to go on to cover up the bottom end, but it has a sealing surface against the timing cover.  So the timing cover needs to go on before the oil pan.

The timing cover will restrict access to the crank sprocket, balancer, and guides.  So before the timing cover goes on, the timing chain should be in place and the timing checked, double-checked, and then checked again.

To get the timing in place, the camshafts have to be installed.  And to install those, the HLAs and rockers need to be in place.

Also, somewhere along the line I need to pour oil into the oil pump and turn the gears to make sure it's as full of oil as I can get it.  That, also, will require the timing to be set or for the oil pump and oil pump cover to be removed and reinstalled.  I'm going for timing the engine first.

In order to make sure I have everything clocked right, I hung the timing cover in place with a couple bolts - just enough to keep it square - and used a level while rotating the engine to make sure the whole thing is flat.  I slipped the crank pulley over the key and used those timing marks to set the timing to OT.  Or maybe it's 0T.  Can't tell.  Doesn't matter.  That's the indication that the engine has #1 at TDC.  Double-checking the output side of the crankshaft, the pin is in the 12 o'clock positon:

The balance shaft could use a slightly better indicator than "straight up and down", but it should be clocked right now:

With that complete, I set about cleaning up the HLAs and the rocker arms for installation on the right side.  Why did I start on the right side of the engine?  I had a really good reason for that:  When I reached into the bin o' parts, the first bag full of lifters I pulled out of the bin was marked "Rt Side".  Some of those lifters were more compliant than others, so I sprayed them down with some brake cleaner, got in there with a little bit of wire, and purged out the old black oil.  I got them lubed up with some nice fresh and clean oil and slid them back into their original spots.  The rocker arms were basically the same, just cleaned them up, dunked them in some fresh oil, and clipped them into place.  I then went to get the camshafts to just lay them in place for the time being, but it was that moment that I realized I had turned the engine around so I had more room to look at the timing.  I had put all the right side lifters and rockers into the left side of the engine.  That little clip that keeps the HLA attached to the rocker arm makes it pretty easy to pull the HLAs out of their little sockets and deposit them into the sockets on the correct head.  Once that was remediated, I found the intake cam, laid it in place, and then had to throw the cover back on the engine and make like a bird and get the flock out of there for the night.

That needs assembly lube and all that stuff still.

Work has picked up a bit recently and my eldest has drama practice until 1630-1645 basically every day.  Two nights a week she has to be about 15 minutes away for an hour math tutoring session, every other Tuesday she has a volunteer thing that she has to be dropped off at and picked up from right in the evening, Wednesday nights my wife is typically out, Friday nights I have the Fish Fry until about 2100, and most nights if I'm not making dinner, nobody else is stepping up to do it.  So it's getting harder and harder to find the time to go over and really dig in and make good progress.  Last night I had about 90 minutes, but the first 15-20 minutes is changing into my grungies, un-covering the engine, digging the parts and tools back out, and getting started.  The last 10-15 minutes is putting stuff away, and changing back into regular clothes and closing down the shop.  Slowly but surely, though, I'm just going to keep knocking tasks off the list.

FWIW, I found it easiest to install the cam gear on the RH intake cam, then drop the cam in place with chain. At TDC that cam has valves partly open that will be trying to turn the cam, hence the need of a cam turning tool and a cam locking tool. After chain is on RH cam & cams are locked at TDC, fish the chain around the crank & balance gears, then pull the chain up to the LH cam. Slip cam gear into chain, then onto nose of LH cam. This is easiest if the engine can be rotated so gravity is sending the chain the way you want it to go.

I installed one valve cover last night. Yes, one freakin VC. The tork is 35 in/lbs first pass, then 80in/lbs second pass.  Yes, 80 in/lbs in both the WIS and Mopar books. There are 30 hi-grade M6 bolts holding on the VC, which also doubles as the upper cambearings. That 80in/lb number feels like a joke. A highly loaded M6 bolt might typically be torked to 100in/lbs.  Anybody else not comfortable with trusting bolts that are just snugged down to hold the spinning cams in place?

In reply to FJ40Jim :

If it is also the cam caps, I would want them torqued to whatever they were torqued to when the journals were line-bored.

IIRC my five cylinder Volvo has well over forty bolts there.  But they are M7s, not M6 

Last night I got the other head's worth of lifters and rockers cleaned up and installed.  That's a really fiddly and tedious task and if my time was worth anything, I'd recommend just buying new lifters and not mucking about with cleaning up the old ones.

I discovered a little bit of an issue, though, as I was working on getting the cams ready for installation:

The journal all the way towards the front of the cam has some pretty wicked nicks in it.  I took a little 1200 grit and some WD40 to take the edges off of it so that now it's just pitting.  Looking at the head, there's a little bit of wear on the bearing surface but the valve cover shows a little more damage in that area.  I forgot to get a picture of the valve cover, but it's not *that* bad.

Unlike the other cam bearings, the front one has a groove machined into the bearing cap/valve cover.  That groove is essentially where the damage is on the cam and is represented by the green lines in that picture.  The oil comes up through that hole and into the groove in the valve cover/cap and then, I assume, flows around the rest of the journal from there.  99% of the damage to the cam is in the area that would be in that groove.  I assume that there were little bearing bits that came up from the #2 rod and got crammed into that bearing, causing the problem.

Since all the damage seems to be in that grooved section, I think I'm going to run with it as is.  There's nothing protruding from the cam journal any more and there's so much space in there anyway with the groove, I don't think that little bit is going to affect oil pressure.  Please correct me if I'm wrong or crazy here, but I think it's going to be alright.

In reply to FJ40Jim :

The torque does seem awfully light, but there are a crapload of those bolts, plus the sealant instead of a traditional gasket, so I don't think there's much to worry about in terms of them coming loose. 

Hey guys! 

Haven't been here in a while. I check periodically, but you really got things rolling now wae! Also very cool to see FJ40Jim joining in on the 'fun'. 

Regarding the valve cover fwiw I also thought the torque was very low. I followed every torque spec by the book though and assumed those engineers know a lot better than me :) happy to report that slightly over a year later I have zero leaks from either of the valve covers. Maybe that will ease your worries?

I used a caulking gun to squeeze the liquid gasket steadily over surface. I found that on some forum somewhere and it worked for me as well. I also tried to follow thickness recommended by manual. It seemed very thin, but again, year later everything is sealed still. I also got praise from a friend mechanic who said most people over fill that stuff and it oozes everywhere on their first go. I allowed that to stroke my ego :)

Keep it going guys!!!