How To Install Cam Bearings With Homemade Tool

Terminate giving your engine machinist cash to do a job you can hands do yourself

Words And Photos: Jeff Huneycutt

Few of us have the mechanism on hand to bore and hone cylinders or deck a cylinder head. That's what engine machinists are for. They have invested in all the specialized equipment necessary to do the work. Hopefully, your favorite machinist has the skills to go with the equipment to provide y'all with consistent, high-quality machine work. When they do, it's money well spent.

Only that doesn't hateful you are obligated to spend whatever more money than you have to.
Another task that many volition go out to their engine machinist is installing the cam bearings. That's considering pressing the cam bearings into the bores tin can be a tricky task without a specialized cam bearing installation tool. You can attempt to simply hold the bearing in your fingers and bang it in with a hammer, but poor results are likely.

The cam bearing installation and removal tool from JEGS includes everything needed to work in engines with cam bearings that range in size from 1.125 inches all the way up to 2.690 inches.

The cam bearing installation and removal tool from JEGS includes everything needed to work in engines with cam bearings that range in size from one.125 inches all the way upward to 2.690 inches.

If you lot don't hold the cam bearing perfectly square with the diameter during installation, you lot tin can shave off material from the back of the bearing against the side of the bore, which will become caught between the bearing and the block. This excess cloth will modify the shape of the inside diameter of the bearing, creating tight spots that will reduce oil menstruum in that critical area. A machinist may accuse only $twoscore or $50 to install cam bearings, so many only consider the extra cost a necessary evil, especially since a quality cam begetting installation tool unremarkably runs well over $300.

Merely at present JEGS has a Cam Bearing Installation Tool they are offering for $172, which is a smoking deal. It'southward still an investment, but the tool pays for itself with merely 3 or 4 installs. Fifty-fifty if you aren't doing any machine work to your cake, whatever time you exercise a complete teardown, the cam bearings need to be removed before cleaning the block.

We put JEGS new Cam Bearing Installation and Removal Tool to the test at KT Engine Development in Concord, North Carolina. The kit includes everything y'all will demand (except for a hammer) to install or remove cam bearings in a wide multifariousness of engines and bearing sizes. In fact, information technology will piece of work with bearing sizes from one.125 inches all the mode up to 2.690 inches. At that place's fifty-fifty an extension to the bar which should bear witness invaluable when working with longer engines like a straight 6.

The first footstep for proper cam bearing installation is to put downward the cam bearings and the install tool and option up some lint-complimentary towels. The cam bearing bores must be admittedly clean. Wipe down both the bores and the outside of the cam bearings with a fast drying solvent before installation. Also, the dorsum of the bearing must be dry when installed in the cake. You may think a niggling bit of oil would assist assembly, but the bearings are designed to exist installed dry out for best performance.

You should besides take time to brand sure you are installing the correct bearings in the right bores. Some engines, similar the Chevy modest block, are stepped, pregnant the cam bearing housing bores tin vary in size based on the position. If so, the proper location for each begetting will be labeled on the box. Accommodate your bearings and so that you can work from the rear of the block forward.

Finally, while installing the bearings, always make sure the oil hole in the bearing is lined up with the oiling pigsty in the block. This may sound obvious, but sometimes can be like shooting fish in a barrel to forget. Some blocks may have grooves that allow the oil to flow around the dorsum side of the bearing before entering through the hole. This arrangement gives you more than latitude when deciding where to place the hole. But instead of just allowing it to autumn where information technology may, effort to place the bearing'southward oil pigsty between the 2- and three-o'clock position (when the block is oriented upright). The top half of the bearing doesn't see pressure level from the cam, and then placing the oil pigsty at three o'clock or above allows the oil to enter without having to fight against the engine. The camshaft rotates clockwise, and so from the point it enters, information technology can form an oil wedge and flow down to the bottom one-half of the bearing and support the spinning camshaft.

With the right tools, installing your own cam bearings isn't tricky, and over fourth dimension it tin definitely save you money. As well, building your own engines is one of the well-nigh rewarding things any gearhead can do. So build equally much of information technology as y'all admittedly can.

(i) The first step is to choose the correct size expanding commuter for the right bearing size. Remove ane segment by squeezing the driver until ane of the segments pops out.

(2) Insert the expander assembly into the driver until the collar of the driver rests against the collar on the expander.

(three)Now you can insert the fourth section of the driver back in place.

(4) After sliding the white guide cone over the driver bar, Ken Troutman of KT Engine Evolution threads the expander associates onto the bar.

(v) Here's a look at what the completed assembly looks similar.

(6)Insert the driver through the front end of the cake through the cam bearing housings until just before the rear bearing housing. Make sure the expander assembly is at its smallest size and slide the appropriate bearing over the driver.

(7)Slide the bearing back until information technology rests confronting the shoulder of the driver, and so grab the hex and spin the bar clockwise to expand the commuter. If it is too hard to reach, yous tin can also employ an open terminate wrench to hold the expander while spinning the bar. Either way, open the expander until the bearing is firmly held in place.

(viii)The key to properly installing the bearings is to keep them square to the bores while driving them into place. The tool makes this easy to do by sliding the guide cone into the kickoff cam bearing bore so that the driver bar always stays centered.

(9)Using a large mallet or dead blow hammer, strike the dorsum of the driver bar to press the bearing into place. Make sure the oiling hole matches up with the oil gallery exit in the block. And if you go too far, you can insert the driver from the other side and printing the bearing back the other way.

(10)Later getting the bearing in place, work your way backwards toward the front of the cake. A calorie-free tin help yous make a quick check to confirm that the oiling hole in the bearing is correctly aligned over the pigsty in the block feeding oil from the cam bore to the primary begetting.

Source

JEGS
jegs.com