cam gear woes..pro help needed
 

ok so i just installed new cam seals. used an impact to remove the bolt holding the gear on. consequently beat the crap out of the gear index slot with the pin on the cam shaft.didn't realize at first how the damage occurred, but did understand that the now free 5 deg. of movement was bad. chose to re install on a different slot (i checked pretty carefully and yes, one slot is almost identical to the stock position). re installed, forgot the backing plate. crap. remove timing gear bolt with impact again to install backing plate. gear slot is junk again and so is the pin on the cam. Just realized the the damage was being caused by the impact driver.

my question is.....are the pins in the end of the cams replaceable???

The gears are trash in my opinion, unless i can get a new , slightly longer pin.:fael: :vash:

Please HELP A MORON.

what year miata? i have tons of stock gears. You could probably replace the dowl pin but im guessing it would be a pain it the butt to try and get it out with out damaging the cam. If its a a 1.6 i have spares, i may even have a 1.8 cam i would have to dig.

Yeah, It'd probably be easier to replace the cams rather than replace the pins. The sprockets are easy enough to find as well.

Put some info in your profile, such as our location, and year/mods of your miata in your signature, it'll help us help you.

sorry bout that, info added..

95' 1.8

mild port work, intake, tinkered with the stock header, de-powered rack, tubular sway bar up front, Tokiko's, rear shock mount, urethane here and there, custom roll cage

Is it common for these bolts to be held in by some sort of thread locking compound??

If so, how are you guys removing them? maybe I was too quick to just grab the balls to the wall- get r done, air impact..

Put down the impact gun. Impacts are not ment for the more delicate parts such as motor bolts.
Rusty suspension bolts, yes.

Air ratchet, sure but still need to watch it.

Lesson learned.

At least it was something relatively cheap, this time.

I've seen some of the turbo 323 cams floating around for a good price.

iv used a bolt with the head cut off as a replacement pin with success. the bolts are usually corroded/loctited into the cam. people usually break the bolt head off.

i try to always heat the bolt and use a wrench haven't had issues in a while.

Twibs, how did you get the pin out ?

the Frankenstein in me says " try and shrink it with dry ice, then pull on it." ...off to the store now.

drill hole for ez out, then wedge it in with a hammer and remove ez out and pin with pliers

mine isn't broken off yet. shouldn't i be able to just yank it out then?

im surprised you didnt just go grab some vice grips already

hey you know what? if you just grab it with vice grips and twist. it pulls out!

looks like a 5mm X 12mm dowel pin. FastenAll has them in every size imaginable for about 75 cents each. I ordered a few...5x14, 5x16, and 5x18. maybe i got reeeeeal lucky..

enjoy your incoming ban

Problem solved. Thanks Miataturbo.net

New question ! I found replacement pins of various lengths and started thinking.....

how balanced is a bumpy cam shaft?

would the weight of a longer pin (which seems appropriate, factory one is cheeseball IMO), be enough to throw it out of balance? hmmmm..

Not what so ever. I wouldn't give it a 2nd thought. I really would swap gears though, it's not worth that risk.

I did get a set of gears from another member, just seconds before administration locked me out. I also ended up getting some 4130 pins, 4 mm longer than stock. had to buy 50 of them so if anyone else would like to have a few, let me know. just pay shipping. Oh wait, I still don't have enough posts to be able to answer pm's. sorry. i will tray and make some useful posts in order to make my pins available.........red tape.

It wasn't administration, it was me. We love to help new people, but would you sign up for a forum that had posts like this in every thread?

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I totally understand, as I'm sure you can understand the slight predicament that i was in. with a broken car and a member with parts to get me going, i REALLY needed to get in touch with the person. I come across many comments where the posting party didn't read anything, they just start typing useless, often repetitive responses.

like I said, I will try and be of some help a.s.a.p., in order to help serve the community. I guess we could clean up and delete these last couple posts as well. I would have pm'd you but I still don't have the internet cred.