Chomped out Cam Cap.

[Zane k]

So was running my rolla for awhile today then realised there was oil all over the whole front of my motor, pulled it all down ended up finding the source, was pissing out just about the little dot. Took rocker covers off and found the Front camshaft cap and cam all chomped the fuck out and was leaking through the front out of the head. Now, is there any reason I can't just replace the cam and cap? Also anyone else ever had this happen, Cause?

[drift kid]

I can't actually see what's wrong in that pic

[Zane k]

Was just to show where it was leaking from.

[Matt]

cam seals are easy to replace...just pull them out and push a new one in...

Oil starvation is the most common cause of damaged cam journals.

[drift kid]

Yeah if it's just a cam seal that's easy, hardest part is taking the gear off and putting the belt back on to correct timing

[undercoverninja]

I was going to type out how to do it, but cbf lol. Just take photos of the gear(s) (you can put it back on without but it's harder) and line it up at tdc before you take the timing belt off, and follow a proper manual. I supervised a mate do his cam seals and timing belt, and he is the most inept car enthusiast I know (on a mazda b6t), but even he managed it mostly by himself. I mean he sheered a bolt on a cam cap but that's just retardations fault.

[Zane k]

Yeah it's all lined up to tdc and iv got the belt off. I'm going to take all the caps off and check how much damage there is. Now some people have told me % 100 not to use a cam cap from a different motor and others have said It should be fine. Opinions. Basically just want to be abe to drive it for a bit while I save up to fund a beams or 20v

[Jimmee1990]

You can sometimes get away with it, but as the caps are bolted to the head and tunnel bored after they are a matched pair. I have seen people use caps from another engine, but I have measured the journals and they don't match so wouldn't last particularly well.

[Course_Out]

We pulled the cams out of my car to change the valve stem seals and found the cams and the caps badly scored. I would say if the cap is damaged the head will also have similar damage (that's how it was with mine anyway)

We cleaned the caps and head, sanded them back to take the sharp edges off and polished them with some autosol, reinstalling with Vaseline (melts away once the engine gets to temp, but means the cams aren't dry when you start it up). We did that to get it back together for a race and its been running like that for several months and quite a few track days. I have another head getting rebuilt to replace it, which I am guessing is what you might have to do as well.

[Matt]

Good tip on the vaseline... it is pretty common to see scoring on the journals of the cams and bearing caps / head for the 4a cams, especially if ran with low oil.

If you linish the sharp edges, 9x out of 10 you will be ok. Sure it lets a little extra oil through, but not enough to kill your oil pressure.