jmporsche944

Ok, This is the point where it gets annoying. Driving home today my car started smoking again from under the hood. The last time this happened, it was due to the cam tower leaking oil onto the headers, causing some major smoke. So I took the cam tower off, replaced the main gasket and the rear cork gasket. Now its happening again.

So my question is.. do the bolts along the bottom of the cam tower need to be re-torqued after taking the cam tower off. I torked them down when I put it on obviously, but do they back out a little bit after time because I had it off?

I dont have the energy/paitence to take this damn thing off again....

MPD47

Come on, you ought to be getting good at it by now. I've never had to retorque mine, I've read (on here) that some people use a liberal amount of gasket sealer on them and dont have problems.

jmporsche944

I used gasket sealent on the rear cork gasket.. but I heard not to use it on the main gasket becuase its meant to expand when the engine heats up

Gator_86_951

Hi-tac in the hizouse......
My solution to this problem is.
1) Clean the hell out of the cam tower, no dripping oil
2) Use frozen assembly lube to hold the lifters in place
3) hi-tac gasket sealer

Mine has been straight for over a year now. Will be interesting getting the gasket off.....

jmporsche944

Isnt it odd its leaking in the same exact spot as before? Right under the O and R in PORSCHE... Maybe the surfaces were a little scratched? I didnt really see anything to bad when I had it off. Hey, I guess the third times a charm right?

Granite 944

I don't know, but I'd be thinking more in line with the warped or damaged mating surface,or improper torque sequencing. I've never used sealer on my cam housing, but then again, it doesn't have more than about 2K miles on it since it was last done, either. But it wasn't leaking there before I changed it either. And no, I've never heard of, or re-torqued those bolts. Gasket IS paper thin though, sealer wouldn't hurt. Sure it isn't the infamous rear camhousing cover thats leaking? I really don't like cork gaskets, ya know.

fezz

you should not have to retorque, but you should tighten down in the same sequence as the head bolts, working inside to outside in a criss-cross pattern with even torquing.

all mating surfaces should be clean and you do not need any gasket sealer.

my guess is the cover is not evenly set.

jmporsche944

I did do the correct torque sequence. The surfaces were both clean. Im gonna wipe the oil off the engine, and try tightening the bolts down more tommarow. Hey, its worth a try. For now, it looks like ill be driving dads 350z till I get this thing fixed. So its not so bad after all, hahah.

M758

I have never retorqed and also never used sealer.

I have done the cam tower on my 951 engine and 3 944-spec motor rebuilds. Never any leaks.

Phil Harrison

Me also. The rear seal can be a pain in the ****, the bolts do come loose causing copious amounts of oil to leak onto the exhaust manifold..

jmporsche944

Yeah, I had to take the whole cam tower off and have the rear holes re-tapped, and Its been perfect ever since.. but now the main one is spitting oil out. Its quite the smoke show pulling away from school with the oil leaking all over the exaust.

Darren

What are you guys with no leaks doing to torque the bolts? I have a snap-on set of long allen sockets, but they must twist 90' when I torque the cam tower bolts...which probably eats up 5 ft lbs at least.

M758

The torque is not that tight. I think I hand torque them to "Snug". They tend to tighten over time as they are aways a bitch to get off.

I do follow the sequence in the book and carefully make sure all the bolts are seated first before I torque.

So I install and start putting in bolt just to hold it down. Then once all bolts are started I use the sequence and finger tighten in the sequence. I usally do the finger tighten sequence 4-5 until the entire thing is seated. Then torque to "snug" with my wrench again going in sequence.