mulik51

Hey.
I am installing a camtower on my engine and I ran into some problems:
1) When I install lifters they are oily. This oil then goes to the canal which is near the edge of the camtower. The edge itself is not oily(the place where the gasket seals). But when you are installing the camtower, you need to flip it. And you can't seal it right away, so the oil leaks on the gasket. Is it allright, or I should change the gasket? If it is not allright, what's the best way to do it?
2) The camtower gasket sticks out a little bit on the inside side(towards the middle of the engine). When I touch it, it seems loose. But I can't figure a way to find out for sure if it is tight or not. Any recomendations how to check that?

Thanks a lot for the help,


Klim
P.S. As some know I installed the M28/03 heads on M28/20 block. I found out today, it is not an interference engine. I turned the camshaft all the way around and my piston #1 was on the TDC. Hope someone might find this interesting

SharkSkin

Mulik,

You might try your thinnest feeler gauges in that area where you feel the gasket is loose. Did you have the tower & head surfaces checked or touched up?

BC

Gaskacinch. Buy that first.

Get more paper gaskets for this surface. Get Cam lub, NOT OIL and put the lifters in with that lube. Wipe all the lube off with alcohol. Apply the gaskacinch or whatever its called on BOTh sides of the paper gasket and on both metal surfaces.

Flip the cam tower onto the head, and try to tighten the bolts without getting the lube or anyting on the paper surface.

It should last a few years without leaks then.

mulik51

Thanks. I will look for that Gaskacinch then. The problem with oil is that i didn't store the lifters right, so the oil drained out from them. So, I need to put them in the "oil bath" to make them full with oil. And oil drains out very easily out. That's why, when getting the lifter out of the oil bath I put it right into the sleeve. What are the advantages of the cam lub over normal oil?
Yeah, the head surface was resurfaced, and I thouroughly cleaned the camtower mating surface with brake cleaner. I can't feel anything if I move my finger on it.

Thanks a lot for the help,

Klim

DANdeMAN

I will be replacing my cam tower(covers?) gaskets in spring and since the thread is "a propo", I have this question : Must I remove the TBelt to execute that work?

SharkSkin

Yes. It will also be easier if you pull the intake runners. You can leave the plenum, Throttle body, etc. alone though you may find you want to dig deeper and clean up WYAIT.

Here is mine at an intermediate stage:

DANdeMAN

Correct, I was going to do that with the gasket and do my belt the spring after that... but it looks like I'm going to do the TB as well.

Thanks Dave

mark kibort

that doesnt sound good. it should be a tight seal from end to end, providing you are torqued down, and nothing got on the gasket and all the lifters are in place. each one of those 8mm bolts are torqued to 14.5ftlbs.

MK

GlenL

Let me offer some contrary opinions:

That gasket is positively bathed in oil. A bit on the surface won't matter. If it bothers you, invert the tower in advance so it drains.

Don't use any gasket maker or sealer. Those surfaces are machined to a high tolerance. It'll just be a mess next time the tower comes off.

The gasket shouldn't stick out. Is it aligned right?

Putting on the tower is a hard operation as when you flip the assembly the lifters want to fall out. This can be helped by using some thick assembly lube to "glue" them in. You want the cam faces and journals coated in that as well. There's a few seconds where you'll not have oil to the head. No way around it. The lube protects during that time. Get a small tub of Redline assembly lube. Should be a lifetime supply. (Unless you're me...or Brendan.

mulik51

Thanks for all the answers. I assume the gasket is correctly aligned becouse there are 2 sticks sticking out of the head. And on the top of the gasket there is a word "TOP" so I can't really think of any other way to install it. It is not a a bit on the surface. The whole side of gasket which is on the outside of the engine is oily. What about the oil in the lifter? Will it drain if I take them out?
I didn't take out the cam, but I will lube the camfaces.

Thanks a lot,

Klim

karl ruiter

When I got my '79 cab both gaskets were totally blown and oil was just rolling out. It turned out there were some early or aftermarket gaskets in there that are not sufficiently reinforced around the oil feed passage-ways and they were just basically ejected from the region. So, we know that there are some bad gaskets out there somewhere and the first thing to do is make sure you really have the right ones. The proper ones were of a greenish tint, came from 928 Intl, and the reinforcement around the oil passages is pretty obvious when you look at them.

When I did the assembly I was pretty careful and everything was carefully cleaned and checked. Assembly was done as carefully as one person in a carport can do the job with the engine in the car and intake runners on. However, both sides are now weeping a little oil. Its nothing like it was before, just some dampness around the gaskets on the top of the motor and an occasional wiff of oil smoke when a drop forms on the bottom side and falls onto the exhaust. Still (Unless I put a 32 valve motor in there) I will have to do the job again, but I am not really sure what I would do differently next time. I think my options are to either pull the heads as well and have the mating surfices of both heads and towers milled or to goop up the gaskets. Probably the gooping approach will make more sense. Any pros out there have comment on this? Someone recommended Gaskacinch. How does that compare to Kurel? Permatex is out of the question because I dries hard and makes a mess. I assume all four surfaces should be gooped prior to assembly (head, tower, both sides of gasket), but perhaps just goopng both sides of the gasket would be ok.

Anyway, make sure you have the right gaskets, and if you have not milled both surfaces (and perhaps even if you have) consider some gasket goop. The task is not really that hard, but you really don't want to be doing it twice.

hupp

I replaced my cam tower gaskets '79 about a year ago and still dry as a bone. A small leak did develop a few months after the replacement, but a re-torque cured the problem. I did apply a very thin layer of Yamabond 4 to the gaskets upon installation. Seems to have worked well, even on the oil pan gasket.

mulik51

I didn't resurface the camtower mating surface. Does it mean I need to use some goop?

Thanks,

Klim

BC

I suggested Gaskacinch because it lays pretty thin and dries thin into a serane wrap type of film. It helps you get these paper and material gaskets on the engine dry.

While Glen has a point, the paper gaskets that go on the cam powers are horrible from the start. They have been horrible for 27 years, and will continnue to be horrible and leak within a few months or years of the job. Since when is paper a good gasket for oil? I just don't get it. Porsche obviously did this so they woudn't have to worry about the cam to lifter relationship, as the paper doesn't have much squish. If something aftermarket were made we would have to worry about that.

I'm not so sure that no gasket WOULDN'T work, t hough you would need to check how that metal mating surface would work. Maybe the same stuff that the engine case halves are put together with. 575 or something like that IIRC.

Richard S

I've tried to repair a leaking cam tower (passenger side) 3 times now on the 79. The last time I used Yamabond with the gasket. Seemed to work fine, until after the Gamblers Run Open Road Race, when the tower decided to revert back to it's old ways and gush oil again. This time I've pulled the engine and will get the mating surfaces checked/fixed, whatever it takes. I hate a messy engine, and especially one that burns/smells/smokes oil. I suspect the mating surface on the head is the culprit, I'll report the findings when I can get it taken care of....give me a couple weeks.

Rich