AE_Racer

The rust is because the car has been sitting for a few weeks, I popped the valve cover of course right after it happened. Afterwards I didnt tighten it down but the valve cover was covering the head, knowing it was pretty much useless I wasnt worried about the rust, thats FL humidity for ya.

I guess i didnt clearly state it was the intake cam sprocket bolt that backed out, but thats what I was referring too. The chain wheel sprocket with the allen head was indeed tight... The intake cam sprocket bolt was backed out a few threads when I initially did my inspection and found the issue. I havent touched the cams or anything internally since buying the car, and i've put 35,000 miles on it since buying it.

AE_Racer

Not sure where youre talking about here, the sprocket attached to the intake cam is still loose if thats what youre seeing.

AE_Racer

My initial thoughts before making the thread were that the cam seized and this is what caused the bolt to back out. Which would mean the oil passage was blocked some how.

INDYMAC

[attachment=14855SCF0054.JPG][attachment=14856SCF0055.JPG]

I inspected my external engine and don't see anything out of the norm, except for a little dust. Maybe someone could edit one of these pictures with an arrow pointing to what I need to check torque for. Thanks.

Billman250

In this pic, the washer in front of the camwheel is rusted.

I found it odd that it was rusted already. but then again you said you have high humidity, plus the washer was likely devoid of oil due to heat.

Spray a mist of wd-40 over everything it will stop the rust in its tracks

zeroptzero

Just a guess here, but if the intake cam seized due to lack of lube, could the force of the engine cause the gear on the intake camshaft to loosen or shear ?. So it might not have been the camshaft gear loosening that caused the incident but rather the camshaft gear loosening was a side-effect of the camshaft being seized. In that case you would still need to find what caused the intake cam to lose oil pressure / lube.

Indymac, I don't think you need to worry about tightening any such bolt on your engine, having a cam gear bolt come loose on it's own when it's torqued to 87 ft lbs would be hard to imagine. Plus you have to remove the cam or cam tower in order to get an open end wrench on the camshaft in order to tighten the cam gear bolt.

AE_Racer

Yea i sprayed the bottom end down with wd40 after pulling the head, and the head itself. Again wasnt worried about the cams. You can see the exhaus cam has little rust in comparison andthat is indeed because of the lack of oil on the intake side. Seeing how the accident is now questionable ill probably just replace the whole engine instead.

AE_Racer

Bump

Billman250

I think there is a KEYWAY behind that big sprocket nut for the cam gear. did it shear off or is the sprocket still in correct time with the cam?

AE_Racer

I wont be back home til the 3rd of Feb. i'll check then and let you know