valve cover is off....what to look for?

[spider_slayer]

well, my valve cover is off. I thought my timing chain was ticking but it seems sturdy as ever...barely and play....it moves up and down in the middle of the cams maybe half a cm.

but intresting thing is that there is a small band of rust on each of my cams. it is in the same place on each cam and the same width as well. what could this mean?

and lastly, there was a plob of some black material sticking to the top of the valve cover.....no clue what it is...

and while the valve cover is off waht else should i look for?

[Onizuka]

Are your sure its rust and not a brown paint? There shouldn't be ANY rust under the valvecover.

The black stuff is just some sort of epoxy for gluing stuff to the valvecover.

Looks for score marks on the cam lobes. If anything else was broken or missing, you would instantly know about it because the motor would either run extremely bad, not run, or self destruct.

[own3d]

yeah, it looked like there was some kind of plastic connector sticking out of the epoxy stuff. id never seen anything like it and it didnt connect to anything on either side of the vc. and i dont think it was rust either but i didnt really look at it close up. the cam lobes were in good shape though

[spider_slayer]

hmmm, wonder what that appoxy **** connects to. it really didn't look very important.......put probally is

[rudee023]

The blob of black goo is normal. Have no idea what it does though.

[ill_sil]

i wouldnt worry about it. Ive seen it on my friends and my sr its probably some type of vent. it doesnt looks like it snaps onto anything, slap that mofo right back on

BTW you can look to make sure there are 20 rollers in between the dots on the cam gears @ TDC. Your left cam pin ( facing the engine) should be at 10 o clock and the right pin should be at 12. the pin on the center of the cam, possibly connected to the camshaft.

PS. when your putting the valve cover on make sure you check the valleys in the back for a good seal.

John

[2Fass240us]

The black stuff and plastic part are for the breather tube that tees off the valve cover. Don't worry about it, and especially don't mess with it.

As mentioned before, look for scuff marks on on the cam lobes. My cover had oil baked on badly in addition to cam lobe scuffing, which signaled oil starvation.

[spider_slayer]

cool, so what exactally does the breather tube do??

[spider_slayer]

please don't make me search. it really really hurts.

[own3d]

you n00b, it goes to the catchcan and to the intake. remember that little tee that the hoses were a ***** to get off? thats what it goes to according to 2fass

[spider_slayer]

hwo the hell did you figure that out? i know you didn't know that last week?

[own3d]

reading is a beautiful thing mike....

sorry, but if im remembering correctly there is only one "TEE" on the valve cover, and i know one side went to the catchcan and i think the other went back to the "pre turbo" intake