[Mk2] [Turbo] Cam cover quicky

[TUBBY-DEUCE]

ive noticed my cam cover is leaking, would this generate any noise at all from pressure being lost?
What symptoms would you expect?

[toxo]

I would expect it to make a right mess of your engine bay, create blue smoke from oil burning on the exhaust manifold, loss of oil pressure which equals loss of oil effectiveness, and you'll slowly lose the oil in your engine. Not a good thing, but a well known problem! It's possible your gasket has gone, in which case they are cheap from Toyota and are revision specific items - a 2 part gasket is required. Or it might just need tightening up, the bolts do work loose. They changed the bolt and washer arrangement rev3+ which makes it a bit better but not perfect.

Hope that helps!

[AdDaMan]

i too have just discovered i have this problem...im guessing i need to swap the screws for bolts....where can these be got?
Thanks

[poser]

i too have just discovered i have this problem...im guessing i need to swap the screws for bolts....where can these be got?
Thanks

I ordered one myself only yesterday from flashmetal.com. Do a search for 'bolt' and Robert's your father's brother.

[Mike]

Quite possibly a stupid question, but are the cam cover and the rocker cover the same thing?

My rocker cover gasket is leaking resulting in oil entering the no.1 spark plug. I've got a replacement gasket but I'm unsure about how difficult it will be to change.

[poser]

Quite possibly a stupid question, but are the cam cover and the rocker cover the same thing?

My rocker cover gasket is leaking resulting in oil entering the no.1 spark plug. I've got a replacement gasket but I'm unsure about how difficult it will be to change.

Yes, cam cover and rocker cover are the same thing.

I'm in the middle of doing this because of the same problem - oil in the first plug which I think is giving me starting issues.

I'm no mechanical expert and the job has been interrupted by the rubbish weather, but it was fairly straightforward.

Ther are some fuller guides on here - try searching for 'rocker cover' - but basically, assuming you've got an N/A, I had to do this:

Remove part of the air box, so I could remove the throttle body.
Unfasten the throttle body - four bolts (it was gunked up, so I've cleaned that out too.)
Remove the inlet manifold (basically a load of bolts) along with any attached pipes.
Remove the rocker cover - again, basically, one nut and seven bolts around the edge and three across the middle that are attached to the cover.

The real pain in the ar$e for me was the position of the bolt in one of the corners (top left, as viewed from the driver's side), tucked away under the wiring loom.

Bearing in mind I don't have a great deal of knowledge, it took me about two hours to remove the cover, including cleanign up the massive amounts of crud that the leak had helped to accumulate. It would have taken far less time to put together, but I lost a bolt so am waiting for a replacement.

I'm sure people who know their stuff would take much less time.

[toxo]

On a rev3 turbo you don't need to remove the inlet manifold. Intercooler pipes off, throttle body plenum + support, you can just unbolt the TB itself and hold it out of the way so you don't need to disconnect the myriad of hoses and wires that are attached to it. Pretty straightforward stuff. Oh yeah, don't overtighten it!! I snapped 2 of the lugs off my first rocker cover that way.

Edit: Those with Rev2's can order the washers used on Rev3+ rocker covers and fit them in with the bolts. This helps to prevent them from working loose.

[Mike]

Do you need new bolts as you would changing a head gasket?

[TUBBY-DEUCE]

sounds like a very common fault, thanks for the info

[toxo]

Do you need new bolts as you would changing a head gasket?

No, there's not enough pressure applied to these bolts to warp them and they don't get hot enough to seize. You'd only need to replace them if they've been damaged somehow, or if they start corroding.

[TUBBY-DEUCE]

is it recommended to use any type of sealant or are the gaskets ok alone

[Ian Geary]

Hi there,

just worked out it was you who pm'd me.

the cam cover doesn't use any sealant - it's just the rubber gasket held down by numerous bolts around it's edge.

the bolts have a metalic/rubber washer, which can get squashed over time, but the bolts are just typical toyota ones which rust up.

As for your original query, my rev3 can run with the oil cap off, and the idle justs goes a bit rough. there's no specific noise.

the idle affect is due I think to the breather being plumbed into the air intake.

Ian

[TUBBY-DEUCE]

lol, yeah been a bit scatty lately mate, origionally i was gonna send the head off then i developed a knocking noise and now it looks like bottom end failure.
so now looks like im gonna jump in at the deep end and do i engine rebuild over the summer as a little project.
i will be in touch tomorrow, but if you got a buyer then sell the gaskets on mate.
coz the way things are going i wont need them for a while