Does anyone suggest puttting a dab of lubricant on the cam prior to putting the gears and/or bearings on or installing the cams into the plate?

 

A little oil can't hurt, especially if you are using the hammer/ socket press method. Do you have a bench vise large enough to use as a press?

 

OK, i got the gears on. One of them just slid right on with no banging and I had to put the other one in the vise and press it on.

Now they are back in the freezer in preparation for the bearings. Does anyone know which way these bearings go in? Does the writing on the bearing need to behidden after they are installed into the plate? The writing on the stock bearing that came out of the plate was not visible until it was removed from the plate. In other words, the writing was facing the plate and not the cam lobes. I am assuming that these go in the same way. The instructions from Andrews sure do suck.

 

Yes, when installing the bearings on the top of the lobes, you should see the writing facing up. Then it will be hidden when it goes in the plate.

 

A good lube for this kind of thing is camshaft breakin lube. Keeps things from scoring and sticking during press. The key should be checked for fit prior to any pressing in both pieces in width and height. File and sand as required to make sure it will go.
Ron

 

Ok, it is finally all done. I tell you what, doing this for the first time was rather nerve racking. I had a more mechanically inclined friend over to help, but he is always in a hurry and does not want to stop and take the time to read. Not to mention, the instructions that come from Andrews really suck.

I could not believe how difficult it was to put many of these part together. The keys on the cams were turned out to be one of the easier tasks. The crankshaft gear and the outer cam drive gear did not want to seem to go on at all. In fact, I don't think that I will ever get them off unless I buy a puller. I had to tap them a bit with a rubber mallet and finally draw them the rest of the way on with the retaining bolts.

I then realized that I forgot to put the snap ring on to the front cam. Lucky for me, we were able to slide it behind the outer cam gear and onto the cam.

My friend was not overly inpressed with the grade 8 retaining bolts. He insisted that we use the stock hardened steel bolt on the crankshaft gear. I had to agree with him as it was the exact same size and seems to me that it must be much stronger. Does anyone think that this will be a problem? Should I have just used the brass looking grade 8 bolt that came with the kit?

 

You'll be fine. Manual says if new is not available then reuse with red loctite 262 after cleaning threads.

 

Thanks for all of your help and advice Dawg (and everyone else). One more question.

I checked the backlash once I had the cam plate installed, but before I put in the adjustable pushrods. There was a little more than .001, which I learned is not very much. It is actually just enough so that you can hear a click of the two gears when turning it by hand.

Once I installed the pushrods the backlash seemingly disappeared. I am assuming this is because there is now too much valve pressure on the outer cam gear for me to turn it by hand. In other words, I was no longer able to hear the click when trying to turn the gear by hand. Please tell me that I am right so that I do not need to tear this thing down again.

 

You will be fine. If you do need to pull the gears use the cam cover bolts and screw them in the 2 holes on the gears. Put a feeler between the screws and the cam plate to keep from damaging the cam plate and just ease them off slowly and evenly. some times you need to touch up the keys a little with a file.

 

Kid, sounds like you made it through. 0.001 backlash is great - most likely you won't hear anything once the gears seat a little bit. You would be surprised how easy the key will come out should you ever need to - see, when you tapped her home you actually shaved a bit off the key (probably like in the 0.00001 or finer range) - someone said you could sand the key down - but, would hate to sand too much - I think the key is just a tad softer than the cam shaft. Wonder, how did you make out with the outer gear (the big gear) key?

For everyone, what I found strange is that I was expecting to see a bit of metal attached to the magnet on the oil plug after my first oil change - which I let go until like 3000 miles after the Big Bore and Cam Gears replacement - I had absolutly nothing on the magnet - not that I'm complaining, just found this strange.

What is the recommended oil change after doing these gear drive installs? Also, better to use dino oil then change qucikly before putting the synthetic oil back in? Any recommendations along these lines?