Cam phaser DIY Experience

[duneslider]

I also agree that those look like torx plus.

Also, I have heated things in close proximity to stuff I didn't want heated and I used some plate steel with a hole drilled in it of an appropriate size and just shot the flame through the hole. Seemed to work good and keep the heat just on the fastener I was trying to heat.

 

[Anaclya]

Hey @Jon2099 I finally got the courage to do the job myself after the noise got even worse last week. I have it almost completely apart. I'm having trouble getting the stud out of the bottom of the timing cover that holds the battery cable on, blocking the bottom cover bolts. Any suggestions? Also here's a picture of my cam phaser from what I can see so far. That hole shouldn't be there lol. That cam is out of position by about 15° too so looks like I'm in for a fun ride.

 

[Jon2099]

The hole doesn't look normal but shouldn't affect how hard the job is. For the stud at the bottom of the front cover, the difficulty I had was being able to get the bracket removed from it because even after loosening the other fasteners for the electric cable there just wasn't enough free movement to get it to move far enough to be easy. I just slid the transmission cooler tubes through the bracket as far as I could and then pried a lot until I could get it off. Once I had it off I cut it down by about 3/4 of an inch before putting it back in. Also, this is from my recollection about a year and a half ago, but it was definitely one of the things that seemed harder than it should have been. I can say for mine that it's been working great and I have had no problems over the past year and a half. I think the real benefits of doing it yourself are you can replace anything else you want to and you can take your time to get it right--and use up some of your colorful word allotment for the year in the process, especially if you start out thinking "this will take about 5 hours". Overall it's a very doable project, though.

Jon

 

[Anaclya]

@Jon2099 thank you so much for your insight! I'll give this a try! I agree this is very doable just time consuming. My parts don't come in until next week so I have plenty of time to get everything off, cleaned, and inspected so I don't feel overwhelmed. I found oil in the driver side turbo intercooler line so considering she has 108k miles, I decided to rebuild those as well. Might as well since I have everything off, tho they are still a pain to get to. Glad to hear yours is running great, gives me hope I'll never have to do this again!

 

[Smoke Legend]

Thank you @Jon2099 for a thorough write-up. Great Work!