A few months back I said I was going to change the good old cam chain, just to be on the safe side, after reading some of the advice on here. Also I wanted to get the modified oil jet as I was sure mine was the old type, which it was. Well I did it and it went very well, just took a bit of time, but then I was off work after a minor op on my foot, so I decided to do it at my leisure.
Stripping it down had a few awkward points like finding a spanner to get at the air filter box rear nut. I ended up bolting two spanners together, to get the length, and then doing it from underneath. Jacking the engine up and down to get the long bolt out of the chain cover wasn’t too bad and you don’t have to disconnect the exhaust to do it I found. (I’m sure I read somewhere that you need to do that but you don’t).
The cam cover was a bit of a pain to get off because of all the bits round the edges of it. Anyway I eventually got it all apart and I was surprised how clean it all was in there. The car had done 67000 at this time with one previous owner and full service history by Vauxhall.
There were no black bits or any muck at all and the oil was clean. The oil nozzle was the old type but it wasn’t blocked. The tensioner had the little nicks around the outside of the hexagon bolt, so you can’t go by that to tell what nozzle you’ve got.
The chain and all the other parts looked almost as good as the new ones, I even measured the length of the old and new chain and there was hardly any difference.
I took the balancer chain and it’s components off to inspect them and decided that they didn’t need changing as they looked in good condition.
I then started to put it all back together with my new cam chain kit. I cleaned everthing up as I went along as I had plenty of time. The workshop manual gives a bit of duff gen as to the TDC position (they’ve got it 180 degrees out) but I sorted that out.
I did a bit of an experiment with the two oil jets before fitting the new one on. I connected them, in turn, to a syringe I’ve got for topping up gearboxes. I put engine oil in the syringe and pumped it through the two jets. The old one dribbled the oil out even though it wasn’t blocked. The new one squirted it out with about six inch jets because of the larger hole.
I put a new auxiliary belt on as well. The old one looked like the original as it had cracks across its width all the way round on the inside, almost through to the outside. Even though it had been serviced by Vauxhall, they didn’t bother to do the belt. I’m sure they only change the oil and filters and do a visual on things they can see.
When I got it all finished I gingerly turned it over very slowly with a spanner on the crank bolt, without the plugs in, just to make sure. All was fine so I fitted the plugs back in and I then fired it up and it started first time and all was well. I’ve now done a couple of thousand miles and it runs a sweet as a nut and never misses a beat. I must say that it looks a very well engineered engine. I’d much rather have chains than belts.
I’ve got a question about the back suspension, so I’ll put that on the appropriate section.
Stripping it down had a few awkward points like finding a spanner to get at the air filter box rear nut. I ended up bolting two spanners together, to get the length, and then doing it from underneath. Jacking the engine up and down to get the long bolt out of the chain cover wasn’t too bad and you don’t have to disconnect the exhaust to do it I found. (I’m sure I read somewhere that you need to do that but you don’t).
The cam cover was a bit of a pain to get off because of all the bits round the edges of it. Anyway I eventually got it all apart and I was surprised how clean it all was in there. The car had done 67000 at this time with one previous owner and full service history by Vauxhall.
There were no black bits or any muck at all and the oil was clean. The oil nozzle was the old type but it wasn’t blocked. The tensioner had the little nicks around the outside of the hexagon bolt, so you can’t go by that to tell what nozzle you’ve got.
The chain and all the other parts looked almost as good as the new ones, I even measured the length of the old and new chain and there was hardly any difference.
I took the balancer chain and it’s components off to inspect them and decided that they didn’t need changing as they looked in good condition.
I then started to put it all back together with my new cam chain kit. I cleaned everthing up as I went along as I had plenty of time. The workshop manual gives a bit of duff gen as to the TDC position (they’ve got it 180 degrees out) but I sorted that out.
I did a bit of an experiment with the two oil jets before fitting the new one on. I connected them, in turn, to a syringe I’ve got for topping up gearboxes. I put engine oil in the syringe and pumped it through the two jets. The old one dribbled the oil out even though it wasn’t blocked. The new one squirted it out with about six inch jets because of the larger hole.
I put a new auxiliary belt on as well. The old one looked like the original as it had cracks across its width all the way round on the inside, almost through to the outside. Even though it had been serviced by Vauxhall, they didn’t bother to do the belt. I’m sure they only change the oil and filters and do a visual on things they can see.
When I got it all finished I gingerly turned it over very slowly with a spanner on the crank bolt, without the plugs in, just to make sure. All was fine so I fitted the plugs back in and I then fired it up and it started first time and all was well. I’ve now done a couple of thousand miles and it runs a sweet as a nut and never misses a beat. I must say that it looks a very well engineered engine. I’d much rather have chains than belts.
I’ve got a question about the back suspension, so I’ll put that on the appropriate section.
