Gas, tires, oil.

The middle boy had his 5th birthday last spring and we had a party for him at the local park. He got lots of presents from his friends, but everyone of them was a) made of plastic and b) made in china (probably made from lead-filled plastic by political prisoners who get shocked by cattle prods if they don’t make them fast enough). Every present except the ones I gave him that is:

A real Crescent adjustable wrench and Channellock slip-joint pliers.

He has loads of fun with them, and if he doesn’t lose them he can use them the rest of his life. Not likely, I admit, but how long before those plastic toys are in the landfill? And they weren’t that pricey, $13.10 for the 8″ wrench and $10.61 for the channellocks from McMaster-Carr.

With my cam bearing tool made, I just had to put it to work. Below I am using it to remove one of the old bearings.

It worked really well, but I was worried about dropping a nut or washer down inside the engine. I didn’t replace the rear-most cam bearing, it was impossible to get to. But it looked pretty good, the bearings got worse toward the front of the car (farther from the oil pump). Next was the reassembly, I soaked the lifters in some oil and worked them with a pushrod to get some oil inside.

Below the cam and lifters are in, new timing chain (if you have the opportunity, always replace the timing chain and/or oil pump on a pontiac motor), new pushrods and new roller tip rockers (some of the pivots were galled on the old ones).

It runs great: no more ticking lifters and I think the oil pressure has gone up a bit. In spite of it being rather mild performance cam (mellings mtp-1, 278 duration and .422″ lift on the intake and 288 duration and .444″ lift on the exhaust), the gas mileage doesn’t seem to have decreased (16-17 mpg on my commute to work).

From the last post you can see that I need new cam bearings, but I didn’t have the installation tool. You can get one for chevy for about $75, but a universal one is about $300. A quick look on google shows several people making their own out of threaded rod and an aluminum mandrill. I didn’t have any suitable aluminum stock, so I looked around for something I could modify. I found a tapered bearing race driver that was already close in size.

I chucked it up holding its handle because I needed to turn the whole outside. I didn’t want to turn half and then flip it over because I wanted to keep the 2 steps concentric within a couple thousands of an inch. I know it’s bad practice to hold something so far from the chuck, but aluminum turns easy.

Basically I just wanted an area that would support the bearing and keep it straight, then a step that would be just a tiny bit smaller than the OD of the bearing. This way the tool can also be used to remove the old bearings. Below I’m testing a bearing for fit.

Just some 1/2″ threaded rod, nuts and washers and it’s ready to use. Next time I’ll show it in use and show the reassembly of the engine.