cranks and cam seals

[3bears]

sadly I don't have the time to do a full timing belt kit myself, I have the tools and knowledge, but no enclosed shop and Ive already got snow on the ground. Ive got a new rattle in the timing belt area. Current belt has 70k on it, previous owner did not do waterpump etc at time they did belt.

So a shop I fully trust is going to do it for me. All he does is 4runners, tacos and tundras. He is using the full asin kit
I have 177k, I asked him about doing the cam and crank seals, and he said they rarely do unless its upward of 250k on them or of signs of leaking.
It would add about 100 to the job. And could stretch the job form a one day job to a day +..I can only sit for a day in town waiting, he is 90 miles from me.

I would prefer to do them as preventative,

Your thoughts ?

 

[octanejunkie]

I would defer to his experience and what he sees when he gets in there rather than force it and cause extra expense and logistics

 

[Lug1]

Matter of trust.
If it would be someone you don't trust, then you could suspect they're avoiding a timely job that pays little extra = not worth it.

If this mechanic is someone you'd never suspect pulling that - follow the advice.

 

[mtbtim]

I just replaced the cam and crank seals on [MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] rig. Getting the cam sprockets off was a fight. The bolts were hard to break free even with two people. I should have used my impact gun but I was trying to show people how to do it without an impact. After that, you just have to remove the cam position sensor and remove timing belt cover #3 to get at the cam seals. I've never replace cam or crank seals before but it wasn't hard. That Lisle tool made it pretty easy to remove them. I used a special kit to install the new ones but used a little tapping with a sleeve and hammer to finish seating them. I can see them charging an extra hour labor for this but an experienced mechanic with the right tools could do it in half that time. [MENTION=122062]sambishop[/MENTION] will probably confirm this is not a hard job.

Sean's cam and crank seals showed no signs of leaking, but since we were in their, we replaced them anyway. There's two schools of thought. #1, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. #2, When you're that deep into your engine, replace things that could fail or leak because it's a ton of labor to go back in if something fails to starts to leak. We replaced all the associated parts on his rig, the tensioner, both idler pullers, the water pump, and the cam and crankshaft seals. All the parts still looked good to us other than the water pump. The idlers were smooth and not leaking much grease, the tensioner wasn't leaking, and the cam and crankshaft seals weren't leaking. The water pump still had a smooth, play-free bearing but it was leaking. I guess the sealant job by the last mechanic wasn't up to par.

That's too bad you don't have a garage available to do this yourself. What about a location that rents shop space? I know you're in the backwoods but maybe a nearby town offers up space for a fair rental price.

 

[nissanh]

I did mine at 176K miles. If you plan to do it, make sure you get OEM TOYOTA else leave it as it is. A 200K miles is a fair mileage cam and crank oil seals for any toyota truck except the landcruisers.

Generally, it should not take more than 1 hour to get the cam and crank seals. Crank seal is the easiest. Just pull out the T-belt sprocket and remove the seal, no bolts to remove. Cam, on the other hand, have a bolt which is a bit tight to remove but an impact gun could take the bolt off in no time.

 

[BamaDrewski]

I did mine at 176K miles. If you plan to do it, make sure you get OEM TOYOTA else leave it as it is. A 200K miles is a fair mileage cam and crank oil seals for any toyota truck except the landcruisers.

Generally, it should not take more than 1 hour to get the cam and crank seals. Crank seal is the easiest. Just pull out the T-belt sprocket and remove the seal, no bolts to remove. Cam, on the other hand, have a bolt which is a bit tight to remove but an impact gun could take the bolt off in no time.

You might want to think about renting a storage unit with lights for a week or so if you want to do this yourself.

I just did a complete overhaul on everything on my engine. I did the valve cover gaskets, timing belt, tensioner, thermostate, pulleys, waterpump, cam oil seals, the cam covers on the rear, half moons, driveshaft oil seal and belts.

On my rig, it was the first time I pulled and cleaned the half moons and the rear cam covers (the rear cam "covers" look like round, black, hollowed out hockey pucks). I had some major oil seepage before doing this and it appeared the oil was primarily from the rear cam covers and the half moons. The cam oil seals on the front were pretty easy. You do have to pull the plate off that is behind the timing belt but it was seriously no big deal. However, even after almost 300,000 miles, those seals showed no signs of leaking. That being said, you can probably get a few more miles out of your rig without replacing those cam oil seals......

 

[nissanh]

I forgot to add at 176K miles, the cam and crank seals did NOT leak oil a bit, I just did it because the mechanic (back then I had no room to work on the truck) wanted to get it done to give a guarantee!

 

[LittleCaesar]

Do it. Like [MENTION=120071]mtbtim[/MENTION] and others have said, it is good preventive maintenance for only an extra hondo.

Or look at it this way: how much would it cost to replace the seal(s) if they start to leak and you don't need a timing belt change?

 

[IBallEngineer]

sadly I don't have the time to do a full timing belt kit myself, I have the tools and knowledge, but no enclosed shop and Ive already got snow on the ground. Ive got a new rattle in the timing belt area. Current belt has 70k on it, previous owner did not do waterpump etc at time they did belt.

So a shop I fully trust is going to do it for me. All he does is 4runners, tacos and tundras. He is using the full asin kit
I have 177k, I asked him about doing the cam and crank seals, and he said they rarely do unless its upward of 250k on them or of signs of leaking.
It would add about 100 to the job. And could stretch the job form a one day job to a day +..I can only sit for a day in town waiting, he is 90 miles from me.

I would prefer to do them as preventative,

Your thoughts ?

My thoughts are that is should not take more than 1/2 an hour to pull the pulleys and replace the seals. Given sometimes one or more pulleys or seals can be extremely stubborn, add an extra 30 minutes. I did my timing belt exactly two weeks ago on a Saturday. I did all three of those seals, I had breakfast at 7 moved my butt rather slowly until about 8:30, stopped for a big burger lunch and still got done before 5. And I don't do this sort of thing everyday. I even took 1/2 hour to scrape crud and clean off the two lower shields. And I had to pull the upper cover after I was done because I didn't properly secure the cam sensor wire and the zip tie I used(Original clip was broken) was rubbing the belt.

So... either find a better mechanic or do it yourself!

:guitar3:

 

[Brian3676]

BhaiOne issue I see with what everyone is saying is "just use an impact to remove the bolts" that's great for removal, but you still need a way to hold them from turning on order to re torque the bolts.

Anyone who measures torque by how many chugachugs the impact makes is not someone I would want working on my car.

A good mechanic with proper tools should be able to do the seals in 30-45 extra minutes, likely faster. I have done a few v6 and spend maybe 15-20 as long as the bolts are not seized or stripped by someone previously.

 

[octanejunkie]

BhaiOne issue I see with what everyone is saying is "just use an impact to remove the bolts" that's great for removal, but you still need a way to hold them from turning on order to re torque the bolts.

Anyone who measures torque by how many chugachugs the impact makes is not someone I would want working on my car.

A good mechanic with proper tools should be able to do the seals in 30-45 extra minutes, likely faster. I have done a few v6 and spend maybe 15-20 as long as the bolts are not seized or stripped by someone previously.

There are installation specialty tools for this but there are several ways to keep the crank from rotating when torquing the balancer on, however, driving the balancer on and torquing it should be two operations. Often the same pulled that was used to remove it can be used to drive it on.

You can use compressed air in a cylinder, lock the flex plate/flywheel or leverage against bolts into the balancer pulley mounting holes with a wrench to torque the balancer. Its not a high torque bolt and a loctite doesn't hurt.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[psea17]

reviving an old thread. did the timing belt job about 25k mi ago. changed the cam shaft seals. i suspect the passenger side is now leaking. not sure what else it would be other than possibly having the wrong oil put in it during an oil change. (only say that because when i put 2qts of conventional in it the leaks seemed to have stopped.)

for you guys that only went in to do the cam shaft seals, how much did you remove to access the seals behind the sprocket and its backing plate. do i need to drain coolant? remove power steering/ac/alternator belts?


trying to get mentally ready and kind of hoping i can avoid some steps. any way to access via top of the engine? guessing not.

also anyone know how difficult it would be to replace the cam shaft sensor's wiring? truck has 260k. it looks like that wire has seen better days.

THANKS!

 

[mtbtim]

reviving an old thread. did the timing belt job about 25k mi ago. changed the cam shaft seals. i suspect the passenger side is now leaking. not sure what else it would be other than possibly having the wrong oil put in it during an oil change. (only say that because when i put 2qts of conventional in it the leaks seemed to have stopped.)

for you guys that only went in to do the cam shaft seals, how much did you remove to access the seals behind the sprocket and its backing plate. do i need to drain coolant? remove power steering/ac/alternator belts?


trying to get mentally ready and kind of hoping i can avoid some steps. any way to access via top of the engine? guessing not.

also anyone know how difficult it would be to replace the cam shaft sensor's wiring? truck has 260k. it looks like that wire has seen better days.

THANKS!

In order to get the cam pulley off, the timing belt has to come off. With that said, you need to basically do another timing belt job. With the timing belt tensioner still applying pressure to the belt, it needs to come out. So, you need to perform all the work necessary to get to the tensioner. Sorry to say, you have to repeat a lot of the work. You won't have to remove the idler pulleys or water pump, but you're going to have to perform a lot of it to get access to the leaking cam seal.

You might be able to splice in a section of good wire on the cam shaft sensor. If not, you have to buy another sensor.

 

[3bears]

wow...an old thread of mine brought back to life.
I can say that my current 4runner.....that is in need of a timing belt ....that I will do in about a month or so...will not get cam or crank seals. Im at 240k. When I bought it months ago...i had to do a full tune up and a preventative radiator.( it was turning tan) So I took off the top cover to inspect what I could and my cam seals were NOT leaking. My belt looked real good too. My rig does not use a drop of oil until recently when my vc gasket on pass side started to leak and even that leak is so minor but it leaks on rear cross pipe and stinks a bit. So I will be doing timing belt, tensioners, rollers, h2o pump etc ( asian aircabin kit)and vc gaskets...but not planning to touch the cam seals. According to the records that came with my rig....in about 5k miles now...the current belt will be hitting about 90k...but records show nothing of waterpump being replaced. In summer I hit some very remote roads....some trips being over 600 miles round trip....so doing some of it as preventative.
Cant imagine cam seals leaking much oil when they do start going bad....but I will have a crank seal on hand....those can be a big leaker....i will decide at the time and with inspection