Recently I just got my car up and going after a year of hard work. The car started to make loud cranking noises after several tuning sessions. At first I thought it was a bad water pump because I had heating issues but it got louder and louder. It sounded like it was coming from the head. Like knocking noises. So I decided to take the valve cover off and I notice the bolt holding the exhaust cam gear was very loose. It was about to come off. I took the bolt off completely and this is what I saw.

Hope you can see the pictures. First time posting pictures on this forum.

What should I do? Do you think it is still okay if I tighten the cam gear bolt up more securely with loc tite? Or do I need to replace the camshaft? How about the cam gear? Is it still okay?

Please give some input to what you would do if you were in my situation. Thanks

 

I would personally replace both the shaft and gear. I got lucky on the wife's Accord motor swap. I had forgotten to torque the same bolt down and was wondering why it was a little jumpy on timing... Caught it in the first 50-60 seconds though. Ouch.

 

How much damage have I done to the motor? The oil looks good. I havent checked compression yet. car idles fine.

What else should I check?

 

There shouldn't be anything wrong with the engine. Just do not run the engine anymore until it it fixed. You will need to replace both the shaft and the gear as they are both pretty messed up. It's lucky you caught it early enough before it did more damage.

 

grind out the holes a bit larger and use the next size up keyway.. ive done this before without problems.. ive also filled the holes in with weld before and re cut the notches....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 97grnrs &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">grind out the holes a bit larger and use the next size up keyway.. ive done this before without problems.. ive also filled the holes in with weld before and re cut the notches.... </TD></TR></TABLE>

Ive never thought about grinding out the holes. I think I will try this. Will the timing change slightly because of this?

 

Where did you find a bigger keyway from? Did you have to make one?

 

no timing wont change just make sure u make the square notch the exact size of the key way or u will have the same prob again.. and u can but packs of woodruff keys at auto stores, universal ones in the help displays.. u can even make them out of strong pieces of metal..