valve timing, driving me bonkers

[peterheywood52573]

I cannot follow the works or the Haynes manuals. I cannot visualise what is going on inside the camshaft sprockets. The 2 dowel bolts, the plate they go through and the camshaft ; are in a fixed relationship. Somehow the sprocket is free to move when the dowel bolts are slackened. I tried to keep all these parts in the same relationship, when I took it apart.
Firstly, I am not sure whether I have tensioned the upper chain correctly. Using the setting template, the notch in the camshafts are about 6mm out at TDC. I am scared of dropping one of the dowel bolts in the front of the engine; how loose do they need to be? I cannot find a good way of rotating the camshafts even if I was sure they were properly disengaged from the sprockets.
There must be good way of doing this?
Peter

[piman]

Hello Peter,

stuff rags down the chains to catch anything you drop.
Cylinders 1 and 6 at TDC.
The centre of the chainwheel is serrated and is removable. You should see a very thin spring around the inner periphery of the camwheel. using a small scredriver remove that then the section that bolts to the cam pushes forward and disengages from the chain wheel.
Set both cams to TDC, (Do you have a cam setting plate?) It's probably difficult to get it right by eye? Once in position, rotate each chainwheel centre to line up with the screwholes in the cams and fit the bolts. They should go in easily and the serrations are very fine so you can be very accurate in lining up the holes. Tension the chain and then rotate the engine a bit then back and check that the cams are still in time.

Alec

[3.8etypephil]

Worth noting is that the serrations mentioned by piman above are of a vernier pattern, so if the holes do not align perfectly turn the plate through approximately 180 degrees.

[peterheywood52573]

Thanks, it looks like then, I ought to completely remove both pairs of bolts.
Peter

[piman]

Hello Peter,

yes, don't forget the rags

Alec