Camshaft Housing

[Sporkhead]

As you can see by the attached picture...I..kinda blew a large hole (the size of my fist :roll2:) in the Camshaft housing cover type thing...Now, I'm not exactly sure how it got there..I was running pretty fast, and I missed a gear, as soon as I relized I was in 2nd gear instead of 4th (i relized AFTER i let the clutch out lol) I shut the engine off, pulled over, popped the hood to try and let it cool off. I'm not sure if it was just so much pressure, and friction, that I blew a hole in it, or maybe something broke off inside and shit through the housing. Which brings me to my actualy question...

How the heck do you get that cover off?!?! Without having to drop the engine. I took all the screws and what not off, and it comes off somewhat, but the left side (by the hole you pour oil in) is still held down by something, which I cannot find for the life of me!

Either way, i'm hoping that It was just pressure that created that hole, which means I should be able to just buy a new camshaft housing from a partscar grand am? Right?


I'm not an expert at cars, or anything (engine wise atleast)..
But my dad is, and he's helping me, so don't worry about being overly-technical with your explanations...any help is welcome, and buying a new engine is out of the question due to lack of money..


thanks ahead for all the help!

[98se]

you gotta take the outer timing cover off, take the cam gear off, then take out the 4 bolts behind the gear

[98se]

just out of curiosity... is your cam sill in one piece?
and please post what the inside of that tower looks like when you get the cover off

[Matt95GT]

Ouch.

Yea, the timing cover has to come off. You will need a shop manual for this procedure.

But... something failed catastrophically, so you'll be replacing more than the housing. (at minimum: cam housing, cam, lifters) Depending on how much/long metal shavings circulated through the oil, the rest of the engine may be trashed.

just out of curiosity... is your cam sill in one piece?
and please post what the inside of that tower looks like when you get the cover off

The cam might be in one piece, but it's pretty much guaranteed that the lifters are not. He'll probably find an exploded lifter, mangled cam lobes, and chewed up housing around the lifter hole.

[98se]

yea, im curious to see what the inside of that hole looks like... ive never seen anything like that before...

ps, if you need a new cam, tower, and lifters, PM me i have a set

[ENGGUY]

Okay now give us a picture of down in that hole, we are all curious.

All the stuff on the front of the engine needs to come off, by front I mean the area where the belt and pulleys are, on the passenger side of the car. After all that junk is outa the way then you can take those covers off. Yeah GM planned it that way, lots of difficult work.

[Sporkhead]

Well, I'll take a picture tomorrow morning as soon as I can, I've been sick with the flu for the past couple days, but I do promise to get some pics. I did look into the lovely hole, and I didn't see anything really broken off. I can't believe they'd make it so difficult to take the cover off.

Thanks for all the replies!

[ENGGUY]

It is suppose to be a deterant, and make you want to take it to a GM dealer to get it fixed. Or just trade it in on a new one.

[98se]

yeah, its not so bad after you've done it a few times

[ENGGUY]

I pretty much refuse to do it in car, I take the engine out, cause it's like only a few more bolts and its out, and saves alot of frustration, and the desire to take a saw to the body.

[98se]

last time i swapped my cams i had to take the timing cover off twice to do it and still had it done in 2 days with the motor in the car... its not too bad once you get the motor mount out of the way

[ENGGUY]

If you have real petite hands it would be a piece of cake. It is a very tight area to work in. The last time I pulled an engine outa one I had to leave the mount bracket in because the 3 bolts were so tight I was afraid the heads would strip, hard to get the proper tool on them.

[98se]

just lock two wrenches together... it slghtly difficult to strip the torque axis bolts, even moreso to do it while loosening... also, if you jack up the motor at the torque mout (dogbone) at the bottom, it should raise that side of the motor up enough to work on it...

[ENGGUY]

Not a new trick I've been doing that since about 1963 or so. These were so tight my 500ft lb impact wrench had a fit removing them. I think the factory guys do that on purpose thinking I love to see the mechanic take these off. Ha ha ha. I had no reason to fight them and make more of a project out of removing them as the intention was removing the engine.

[Sporkhead]

I know it's been forever and a year since I created this thread, and I greatly apologize for that, but I just now remember I made this thread lol.

Here's what apparently happened (pictures soon to come..possibly)

One piston was totally trashed, all 16 lifters, trashed. One cam, trashed, the cam-housing (obviously) trashed lol. heads needed to be replaced..

ARGH! All I need before I can get this back on the road is a Head Gasket, and 16 lifters :(