Land Rover camshaft removal

    Finally got enough stuff to try and get the camshaft out. The main thing I was waiting on were the pins to hold the timing in place and a gear puller for the timing gears. I bought the 12 piece kit.

    This has the damper puller and the pins for 2.5, 200, 300tdi's.
    The camshaft and half the rocker arms came in due to a brain fart by the supplier, along with the cam bearings.
     Here is a pic of the damper, it has the bolts for the pully and fan in it still. Those get removed and the ones from the puller go in those holes.

The next pic is the puller hooked up to the damper turned by a rachet.

The last pic shows the damper off the crank shaft.

     Once that was done I could take the cover off the timing case. It is held on by 13mm bolts. From there I undid the belt tensioner and removed the belt and using the kit pulled off the camshaft gear. The belt and tensioner look very new. I thought that I could access the cam thrust plate next and remove the cam, only to find that I had to remove the crankshaft gear and the injector pump gear so I could take off the timing chest. Only then could I remove the cam.*&^$$&*

     So I concentrated on the crankshaft gear first. I didn't have the right size bolts to reach the gear in the kit so I had to go to the hardware store and buy some. Five and a half inches long 6mm x.90. These I used with the damper puller and slowly pulled off the gear.

     Next day I went after the injector pump gear. Nothing I had fit the gear for pulling. The tool in the book #18G1457 has a new number it is now LRT-12-029 and sells for outragious money in the UK. I tried to make my own using some 3/16 flat stock and a small puller I had. I did a good job of centering the holes and drilling them out.
    My puller has a 12mm x 1.75 thread and I used 5/16 for the side holes but the gear holes are 8mm x 1.25. After doing all the work and putting it together the 3/16 plate just bent when I tried to use it.

 I had no option but to wait until today(Monday) to go to the steel place and get something to make a puller like the one in the book. So armed with the timing kit and pics from the book and measurements off the gear I journeyed into Santa Cruz and bought a 3x3in piece of 3/8's flat  and a 1in length of 2 3/8"od pipe for the grand total of $5. This I brought home and set to work on.
    First I located the position of the holes in the plate and drilled and tapped the center hole and drilled out the side holes. Then I welded the pipe to the flat. While that cooled I went to the hardware store and bought some 8M x1.25 x65 bolts to fit the gear. When I came home I put it all together and it worked a treat! Although I have to admit I thought something broke when the gear released with a click. Turns out the shaft for the injector pump is tapered. So here is the puller with the gear attached.

     This left the timing chest ready for removal. I undid the injector bolts and the rest of the chest bolts and pulled that sucker off!!!!!

Once the chest was off I checked the endfloat of the camshaft. The book has tolerances listed as 0.0025 to 0.0055. Mine I could measure with a tape measure at somewhere around .250 (1/4") !!!!! Have to figure out why it went like that.

 

 

 

Then I pulled out the camshaft and set it aside. I went and cleaned up the timing chest, wire brushing the gasket material from the surfaces and cleaning off some of the grunge.

 

Once the tools were put away I checked out the cam. There is a big wear spot on #8 lobe(the bad one) and all the rest look like someone sanded down the lobes except #6 has some black crud on it. Pics show the old and new cams and the wear.

 

When I cleaned up the chest I found the water pump passage had a lot of sealant in it. When I removed it I found that one of the corners is almost thru to the bolt hole. I'm taking pics tomorrow and taking it to the welder to see what he can do. New chests are around $600 from the UK.