Today, while replacing my valve guide seals I noticed what appears to be a small needle bearing of some sort just hanging out on top of my drivers side head right at the front by the cover. I took some pics of it/where I found it but can't post them here. I'm on my phone...the "needle bearing" is about 5mm long and about 2 in thickness. Can someone here let me send the pictures I took to them so they can be uploaded here? If anyone has any advice as to what it is/ where it's supposed to be, I'd appreciate it

 

"the "needle bearing" is about 5mm long and about 2 in thickness."

I can't wait to see the pics if your dimensions are correct.

It sounds more like a dowel pin. Maybe something from the end of a cam where the sprocket goes??

 

he means 5mm long and 2mm long in thickness. so 5mm x 2mm.

 

Can you pm me your email adress? I'll send you the picture if you don't mind uploading it for me...I was thinkig it might be a dowel pin of some sort but couldn't find where one would go. One place I forgot to look was where the vvt solenoid is...

 

only the exhaust cams have a dowel on the the VVT solenoid is where the intake cam aligned (small hole)... my guess is that it accidently fell in during an oil change... oil fill in that location... I can't really tell cam dowels aren't going to make their way onto the heads... they fall into the pan

 

heres the pictures.


EDIT: Found it! It's the dowel between the camshaft/cam gear like you said, John. Must have fallen out of the cam during removal and landed there. I just thought it was a needle bearing because it has a mirror polish on it. Never thought that much effort was put into making a simple dowel. Now my question is this-I think in the process of busting the cam gear loose, the gear must've moved a bit because now the hole on each respective part where this dowel would have went is kind of egg shaped. does this mean I need a new cam/gear, or should I be fine just re-installing it and torquing it down as usual?

 

hmmm hard to say... the dowel goes onto the intake cam sprocket... and the dowel lines up to the small hole on the cam... to be 100% sure I would replace the egg shaped hole piece... probably the sprocket since that is where it belongs and I have never seen fall out... exhaust cam dowels I've seen fall out... now is the perfect time to put in cams since you are in there... even some rev-ups... but then you lose your bottom end

 

I was right, I was right!!

 

Yeah you were- thanks!

 

That's a dowel pin all right. I have seen several VQ's with damaged intake cam sprocket dowels, have a look at the end of the intake cam where that dowel from the sprocket meets the cam and make sure the hole isn't beat up.

 

Yeah, it is. Trying to finD a used sprocket/cam to replace them. The sprocket actually cracked. The cams hole is definately egg shaped. I was extremely careful in removing these-using istructions from alldata all along the way. Is this common? What gives? Lol almost 700 bucks in damage just from removing the timing chain.

 

Don't know why but it happens quite often. Is it on bank 1 by any chance?

 

Nope...happened on bank 2 for me. Maybe it's the order in which they are cracked loose? Never heard about it until I managed to d!ck it up. While we are here, do you have any experience with swapping out 1 used cam from one engine onto another? Obviously I'll give it a very close visual inspection for any abnormalities...I'd like to plastigage it for oil clearance but I have no idea what allowable specs are...any advice?

 

oil clearance ins't an issue... pretty consistant there... you will have to check valve lash... you may have to play musical buckets... or have to buy some you should be good though

 

Gotcha. I'll check everything out first chance I get. Living in Germany and having to get all the parts from the states is kicking my a$$ Time wise.