Just thought I'd share my worst experience working on cars so far:

So I attempt to change my cams this past weekend, only to be extremely disappointed and pissed off. Im not sure what kind of head work the previous owner did the the engine but when i went to remove the valve cover, none of the bolts felt torqued to spec...granted the torque isnt that high but still, one of the bolts was even loose!

The next problem I ran into was the damn trigger bolt on the Exhaust cam. I broke 3 different sockets on that damn thing before i gave in and went to SEARS to buy some hardened metal sockets. Finally broke it loose and put it on my new cam, which i thought would be the end of my problems...little did I know.

While putting the cam cap covers back on, I got halfway through torquing the bolts down when one of those b****es snapped on me! After doing some research its an expensive lesson learned to never reuse torqued down bolts.

After this string of bad luck I didnt feel comfortable trying to drill that thing out, so, sad to say my car got towed to the shop to have it removed. I told them to just finish the cams as well just to avoid having to tow my car back home

pissed off a little bit. just thought i'd share

 

That sucks man, we've all been there. But think of how nice it will be when you can drive her again

 

It always is worth it in the end even if it is a serious PITA.

 

So the cam cap bolts shouldn't be reused? I knew the factory head bolts aren't reusable but did not know that about the cam caps.

 

I dunno. But for $1.50 a pop you should just get all new ones dude. Very cheap insurance considering what I have to pay now to get the job done.

Yeah Im sure it will be worth it once i get her back, but until then...Im gonna be pissed > lol

 

You guys are referring to the cam tower bolts, correct?

 

Yes, that's what I'm referring to.

 

Reading this is giving me second thoughts about trying this myself now. Might just have to fork out that cash to pay for the install.

 

Very unusual to break a cam cap bolt. I have done countless cam installs and never had that happen. The only torqued bolts that are one time use that I know of are the head bolts. Which get progressively torqued because the are designed to stretch.

When you were tightening the bolts did you go in small increments between the forward and aft bolt? A binding issue or being cross threaded is the only scenario I can see that would cause you to snap one off.

 

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/ev...cs-thread.html

Great thread for torque specs.

 

What I did was hand tighten both til I couldnt turn it anymore, then just torqued to ~14.5 ft/lbs. The bolt snapped at the same time the wrench clicked

 

I have never had that happen (I have dissembled 100s of DSMs), but there could of been a casting flaw or it could of already been cracked from previous use.

 

Man you guys telling me its not normal for these bolts to break is pissing me off even more...

Just a string of bad luck I guess

 

The trigger plate on the exhaust cam, the FSM says 89ftlbs. Which is wrong. I found that out the hard way also. So when doing this stuff, it the spec seems wrong double check it.

But sorry for you bad luck.

 

Yeah i think the trigger is supposed to be torqued a bit lower than that