I couldn't get the frickin cam gear nuts off! I tried everything. My impact wrench almost stripped the head of the bolt. With a hand breaker bar, the cams just kept turning. I had a short piece of wooden dowl sitting in my shop so I shoved that in the spindle holes and it worked like a charm. BUT....in my enthusiasm, I managed to break off some teeth on the front cam.

Luckily, I have another car that I can drive to work and back in but now I am dead in the water until I get some new gears. I wasn't planning on spending the extra dough to get adjustible gears. But now I am forced to do something. ARGH!


Anyone have a set of original cams gears laying around for an 03 EVO VIII? Please PM me.


The OEM gears are really brittle judging by the way it looks and broke. Shouldn't there be a tool for locking the gears or something...I know I can't be the only one to have had problems taking off these nuts. And for later on..how do you torque these bolts down if the damn things keep spinning!

grrrrr....going to drink a beer now and try to go to my happy place.

 

The cam has a place on it to hold it still with a wrench.

-Paul

 

yup, if you are looking at it, it is about 1.5-2 inches from the left. The size is around 1".

 

Mother trucker! It sure the hell does. Argh..now I am even more pissed. I need another beer..and I still need a new cam gear.

 

check your pms!

 

hahahahhaahhahahaha. At least you are taking it in stride. Good, funny story.

 

This deserves a...

roflcopter!

http://www.rofl.name/roflcopter/

 

that is by FAR the funniest thing Ive seen this week!!!!

 

Laugh it up chuckle heads.

But seriously...whats a project without something going wrong.

 

I was able to break loose the bolts on the stock cam gears by putting the car in 5th (friend with a foot on the brake pedal would work as well--make sure the tranny is in gear) and, with all wheels on the ground and the timing belt still fully tensioned, putting a breaker bar on the bolt. Broke loose pretty easily.

I did this after trying to hold the camshaft with a wrench. I guess my wrench wasn't big enough or I just wasn't strong enough, because that went nowhere; again a second set of hands might have helped here too.

 

Atleast u have a good sense of humor. Also i think u r totally right what would a project be with out something going wrong

 

good idea. haven't heard of that before.

 

I would recommend against this method, as it could stretch or break your timing belt. It is not made to withstand that kind of force. I don't think I would be comfortable driving a car that had cams installed that way until the timing belt was replaced.

-Paul

 

yes but i didn't agree with his idea totally. i guess i should have explained myself! lol. you are right. i just thought that putting the car in gear in addition to using an open end wrench on the cam and a breaker bar on the cam gear bolt was a good idea. you have a very good point though.

 

Take the cam and cam gear out together and put it in a vice, soak in wd40 and use anything you want