Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

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Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby jayrs on Fri Aug 03, 2007 1:02 am

Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

i dont have many picks on my pc of head, the best ones are on here, i didnt get none when i rebuilt mine :(

This guide is written for a fiesta rs turbo as I was asked if I could do one, but it is the same for any other cvh apart from a few bit that wont apply to other models, i.e., xr2i, or even a carbed cvh, but these will be a couple of bits like the throttle bracket and the oil feed pipe, and or course, if you have a RS1600, or even the RS1600 rocker cover the breather pipes are located slightly differently to other cvh’s.



Tools need
Pliers
Flat head screw driver
Ratchet (3/8 drive is fine)
Ratchet extension bar, long and short, dependant on lengths of each
10mm socket
10mm spanner
Strong magnet tool (optional)
13mm socket
8mm socket
Torx bits
Scraper of some form, Stanley type is fine

Ratchet (1/2inch drive)
19mm (I think) socket
Valve stem replacement tool


Parts needed

Almost certain a new rocker cover gasket
Cam kit Inc tappets or just tappets on there own
New rocker arm nuts (optional)
Clean new engine oil
Cam lube (optional, but good if you got it/can get it)
Container big enough to fit all new tappets in and water tight
Clean rag

If the cam is to be replaced too

Thrust plate (if cam is being replaced too)
Camshafts cover cap/plug
camshaft oil seal (optional, but advisable)

If you are fitted a up rated cam your fit the up rated spring and valve stem seals, which normally come with the cam kit, if they don’t your need some 1 piece “top hat” stem seals


Right, first off, despite what people say, you can replace just the tappets and not the cam as well, yeah ok, its best done together but its not always necessary, it wont wear out faster, it wont focked the cam unless its focked anyway, but your see that with the old tappets, the main reason people change them is the were internally and become noisy, thicker oil may help a bit, but don’t hold ya breath,

NOTE, it is advised to soak the tappets in oil before fitting, that’s upright, fully submerged in oil (the same oil in ya car) for anywhere from a hour to 24 hours before, the longer the better.

Getting to the tappets

Undo and remove the boost pipe from the intercooler to charge carrier, block the hole with some rag save $hit getting in
Remove the HT Leeds from the spark plug and sit to one side, remove the HT lead holder, its held on with 2 Torx screws, which also hold the stainless charge pipe, or should unless the lugs have snapped off, lol.
Undo the breather pipe from the ISCV (idle speed control valve) to charge carrier and remove it.
Undo the jubilee clip on the small pipe holding the charge carrier to throttle body, this pipe can be removed once charge carrier is off
Remove the charge carrier; undo the 2 10mm bolts that hold it to the rocker cover.

At this point, dis connect the throttle cable, prise the retaining clip off and using a screw driver pop the rubber grommet out of the throttle bracket, open the throttle a little by hand to the right of the throttle body and remove the throttle cable.

Not on the FRST, the throttle bracket gets in the way and stops the rocker cover coming off, so it needs to be removed, it can be done by slackening it off and moving it but you may as well remove it.
Now xr2i’s etc have a different throttle bracket, I don’t know why but they do, so remove the 2i one by removing the 3 bolts holding it on to the throttle body.
The FRST one is bolted to the 2 bottom bolts of the throttle body (10mm) and 1 13mm nut at the back of the inlet manifold, you need a long extension or along and short joined to reach it, you should be able to see the nut looking in from drivers side, it’s a pain in the @rse but needs to come off, but its even more of a pain fitting it back on so be warned.

Anyway with throttle bracket removed the rocker cover can come off, if you don’t want to mess about with the cam cover on, remove it, well, take the 2 long 10mm bolts out and push the cover away from the rocker cover, you don’t need to remove the cover totally unless your doing the cam as well.

The oil feed pipe will not get in the way so wont need removing, you may need to undo the P clips that hold it to the lifting eye and turbo but TBH you don’t really need to.
Open the spring clip holing the breather pipe to breather filter and move it up and pull the breather pipe off, do the same to the passenger side of rocker cover on the crank breather pipe
Undo all the bolts holding the rocker cover on, and remove the cover, you can put the cover in a black bag or something to save grit and $hit getting in it.

Tappets

You be faced with 8 rocker arms, you can do them in any order you want, or take all the rocker arms off at the same time, if you do, make a note of which when where and put them back in the same place.

Undo the 13mm nut, you will notice the top is oval, don’t worry, it is a locking nut, it not busted, lol
Once the nut is removed, lift the rocker arm off, make sure the small shim that sits at the base if the rocker arm mount (if that’s what ya want to call it) stays put and is not stuck to the bottom, if you lose it, your know about it!, if it is stuck to the bottom, pull it off and pop it back over the stud and slide it down to the bottom.

If the tappets are to be kept to be refitted, say ya only checking something, keep them in order and refit in the same place.
The tappets can sometimes be a pain to get out as you cant get a grip, this is where the strong magnet tool comes in, pop it on and slide the tappet up, if this doesn’t work, use the pliers to grip the top and slide it up.
Some times the bottom of the tappets can be sharp and put up a fight, but pull it out, try not to twist it about to much in case you score the bore, but get it out either way.
Once its out, with clean oil, get a load on you finger and lube the hole, pull a nice new tappet out of the tube of oil and slide it in, if you have some cam lube smear of that over the base of the tappet and on the top of the tappet once fitted would be ok.
Refit the rocker arm to the correct torque setting (27Nm or 20lbf ft)
Repeat this for the rest.
A tip, hold the rocker arm anti clockwise while tightening, when you torque it up or final tighten it will slide back to the centre, this stops it sliding to far clockwise, ive known rocker arms make a racket if this isn’t done, then again, ive known it not happen too, so its up to you that bit.

Camshaft

If you plan on doing the camshaft as well, you will need to remove the coil pack, unplug the coil pack, if you want remove the HT leads and remove the 4 Torx bolts holding the coil pack to its bracket, once the coil pack is off, remove the 3 10mm bolts holding the bracket to the head.

Remove all the rocker arms and tappets as said above, keep the rocker arms in order.
Assuming you have fully removed the cam cover,

Remove the spark plugs to aid lining engine up, to line engine to TDC use a socket and ratchet on the cam pulley, you can do it on the main bolt that holds the pulley on and turn in clockwise direction, once in TDC, slacken the cam belt tensioner and slide the belt off the cam pulley.
Undo the camshaft pulley bolt, this can be a bit tight at times, but lock the pulley into position with a screw driver through one of its holes onto the head, if you can, put something on the edge of the head to save damaging it.
Once the bolt is removed, slide the pulley off, pull out the key from the key way (your see) and don’t lose it!!
Undo the 2, 8mm (I believe) bolts holding the thrust plate in and remove the thrust plate but pulling it up and out.

The end cover cap thermostat end, need to have a flat head screw driver punched through it and levered out, don’t beat the screw driver in too far and hard.

Once that’s done (and tappets should be out) push the cam from cam belt and with draw it via thermostat end.

If you plan to fit a new camshaft oil seal (recommended) once the cam is out, lever the oil seal out with a screw driver, taking care not to damage the seal face in the head.
Once out, fit the new seal in, make sure it goes in square, use a bit of wood or a socket to drift it in square, it may be a little tricky for space while on the car but it is do able.
You may as well fit one for the few quid they cost.


When you fit the new cam, oil up/cam lube the lobes and the bearings, the bearings are the round ground up parts and slide it in gently until it is “home”.
Fit the new thrust plate, making sure you have oiled the part that runs on the cam, refit the 2 bolts that hold the thrust plate in.
Using a big socket or something like so, fit the new cover cap to the back, make sure it goes in even, you could even use a small flat bit of wood to drift it in flush with the head, again, make sure it goes in square.
Fit the key back into the key way on the camshaft, fit the pulley back on and tight the bolt in the same way you undone it.
Pull on the cam belt to make sure it is located in the bottom pulley, careful not to move it from its marking (as seen on bottom cover) keeping the belt thought, slide it onto the cam pulley, keep it tight and slide the adjuster into plate and tighten the belt.
It tight enough when the belt going down to the bottom pulley (in a straight line) can be twisted 45 degree with minimal slack, once that’s done and assuming you have top and bottom pulleys set to the right marking, i.e. TDC tighten the cam belt tensioner up.

Fit the tapes and rocker arms as described above and turn the engine by hand a few times to make sure you have set it up right and you are not getting any piston/valve contact, if you hear/feel you have, stop!! And check and adjust the timing marks as needed, but if you have put it back the way it was you should be find.
If you have fitted a veriner pulley, make sure it set to what ever it’s meant to be and is locked tight.

If you are fittings a up rated cam that comes with up rated valve springs your need to fit them after the cam is in



Up rated valve springs, and stem seal renewal.

When fitting new valve springs or the steam seal you run the risk of dropping a valve into the bore, if you do this, then its head off job to get it back, one way is to rotate the engine so the piston is at TDC for the valves your working on, so if you start at pulley end you can work in inlet and exhaust on the bore closest to cam pulley, and the 3 bore along, if the valve should drop, it will hit the piston but will not fall out of the valve guide so retrieving it is fairly easy, well a lot more than if it fell out put it that way, it will not damage anything but falling onto the piston.

Right you replace, assuming you have set the valves you are working on, piston to TDC place the valve stem tool onto the rocker arm stud and align it do access to the top of the valve can be achieved and do up the tool which will compress the valve spring, if the valve goes down also, pull it back up with the magnet too or pliers, pliers will not damage the valve as its hard but don’t grip it too tight, pull it up and remove the 2 collets, I remove them with a magnet tool, because if you drop one and it goes down a oil way you fairly fcuked, as 1, you have to remove it, and 2 you’re a collets short.
Anyway with the collets removed, undo the stem seal tool, now the stem seals are fairly good at keeping the valves up-ish, nut don’t trust them, get a grip on it to have the magnet tool on it and remove the tool.
Now the top hat for the spring will come up past the top of the valve so don’t try and stop it.
Once the toll is off, remove the spring top hat, and the spring, if you are not planning on replacing the stem seals, my advice is to do it, you might as well.
Using a pair of pliers grip the stem seal and pull it off, if not use a flat head screw driver to “pop” it off the guide, keep hold of the valve best ya can now, should if slide down, your best bet is the magnet tool, get one that’s got a small head so it fits down the guide.
Anyway, with the new stem seals, smear some new clean engine oil around the sealing lip (rubber part) and slide it down and seat it, make sure it is seated.
Fit the new/old spring and the spring top hat.
The new seal should grip the valve nice, but again don’t trust it.
Wind the tool back on and compress the spring, put a tiny dab of grease of the inside bits of the collets and put them back on, the grease sticks the collets on and stops them falling off, once they are both fitted, undo the tool and remove, that’s 1 done, if you have started with inlet valve, do the exhaust valve, then move on the matching TDC bore and do that one, then rotate the engine so the other bores are TDC and repeat to them valves.
Once fitted, fit the rocker arms and carry on putting everything back together.

A small tip here is to cover the head in a rag with a slit in it, the slit will go over the valve you are working on so should you drop the collets, you have more chance of getting them back rather than going down a drain hole.

Once everything inside the rocker cover is fitted and torqued up refit the rocker cover, and everything else in the reverse of removing, there is nothing you need to be aware of as to refitting, apart from the throttle bracket.
When you come to fit this, put it back in and put the 2 throttle body bolts in before you do the nut on the back, but don’t tighten the 2 bolts right up right away, if you fit the nut first you may find the 2 top bolt holes don’t line up.
Getting the nut back on at the back is a right pain, I find putting some blue tac on the nut then pushing it into the socket is best as it stops the nut falling out when trying to line it up, if you don’t, you soon get pi$$ed off with it falling out.
Anyhow, once it’s on, tighten it right up, then tighten the 2 top bolts for it and carry on refitting the rest of the stuff.

On start up expect it to be a little tappet-ity, this will quite down as the tappets fill with oil and bed in.

If it’s a up rated ram you have fitted, run it in the way the manufacture says to do.
If it’s a std cam, run it in with normal driving, the need to rev the car for 15 mins for bed a new cam in is a stupid thing IMO and is only there to protect manufacture against people that fit up rated cams etc then floor the $hit out of the car on the first drive and end up wreaking something.

Tips,

Soaking tappets in oil for unto 24 hours before fitting is recommend

write out 8 small bits of pager with numbers 1 – 8 on, stick(using the oil already on them) them on the rocker arms to make a note of where they came from, say 1 is top cam end, 8 is bottom thermostat end

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Last edited by jayrs on Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:59 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby Ollybee on Fri Aug 03, 2007 1:08 am

jayrs wrote:Image



:lol: Made me chuckle.
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Postby jayrs on Fri Aug 03, 2007 2:24 am

that was the fcuker that caused my big end to start knocking :lol:
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby mintwhiters on Fri Aug 03, 2007 9:18 am

ollybee wrote:
jayrs wrote:Image



:lol: Made me chuckle.


Thats just how mine looked... except for the old man's hands :lol:

(sorry - couldn't resist)

Don't forget to bed the new cam in with mineral oil, fully synthetic oil will not allow the components to bed in and the cam will be fooked in no time :rolleyes: I learnt this the hard way :rolleyes:
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Postby jayrs on Fri Aug 03, 2007 10:35 am

fcuking old man hands :lol: :lol: workers hands boy

thats what they dowhen its new mate.

my cam was lubed up with cam lude, none of this, rev it at 2k for 15 mins b0llocks, and mines still ok
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Postby Ollie on Fri Aug 03, 2007 12:08 pm

That's what I did with mine too, plastered it in cam lube. Sod buying special oil for it. :lol:
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Postby jayrs on Thu Aug 09, 2007 3:42 pm

can a mod move this to guides please
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Postby The Stig on Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:45 pm

jayrs wrote:can a mod move this to guides please


certainly sir :aviator:
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Postby jayrs on Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:56 pm

nice one, cheers dude :)
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby FezV6 on Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:15 am

jayrs wrote:

Image


You have a very understanding wife! :lol:
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby mintwhiters on Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:02 am

FezV6 wrote:You have a very understanding wife! :lol:


He's not the only one, mine came home yesterday to find bits of engine in the dishwasher, on the kitchen side, engine all through the dining room, gearbox fuel tank and radiator in the shed blocking the mower in and my interior in the spare bedroom :o :lol:
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Postby jayrs on Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:53 pm

:lol: :lol: never tried it but dishwashers are ment to be spot on for degreasing.

best bit, thats not my house, my car was at my parents place at the time of the engine rebuild etc as i dont have a drive way, so it was in my parants utility room :) i rebuild the head and all sorts on the massive freezer in there too. :lol: :lol:

na my wife is understanding though, had a frst bonnet on the landing for about 2 years now, :lol: :lol: , i think i got a bit of fiesta in every room in the house apart from the bath room :lol:
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby jayrs on Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:39 pm

after giving clark some help he done his today, and ive robbed a few of his pictures and added them to the page.
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby cossiej on Fri Feb 22, 2008 1:20 pm

[quote]assuming you have set the valves you are working on, piston to TDC[/quote]
How do you tell its TDC? I've set it so timing marks are lined up so 1 and 4 should be TDC?
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby jayrs on Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:42 pm

[quote="cossiej"][quote]assuming you have set the valves you are working on, piston to TDC[/quote]
How do you tell its TDC? I've set it so timing marks are lined up so 1 and 4 should be TDC?[/quote]

yeah it should be mate, another way to tell is watch the rockers as you turn the engine, when inlet or exhaust fully opens and just starts to shut you know its TDC, you would more than likly have the plugs out to make it easy to turn it over so with a tourch you see the piston.
another way is with a long straw, poke it in the plug hole on the piston and watch it come up and as it starts to go down you know you have reached TDC, and being plastic and thin it will not damage anything in the bore or piston, just use one thats plenty long enough or it could well drop through into the bore
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby cossiej on Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:02 pm

Thanks anyway we've done it now, as mentioned above took plugs out, couple of moments when I was going to give, good team effort, J does bits that require a bit of strength and I fought with the collets

Z
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby jayrs on Fri Feb 22, 2008 5:34 pm

lol
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby Pastieman on Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:54 pm

you must remember to tighten down the rocker at each cam lobes lowest point otherwise they will tap very loud :)
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby jayrs on Wed Feb 27, 2008 11:48 pm

[quote="Pastieman"]you must remember to tighten down the rocker at each cam lobes lowest point otherwise they will tap very loud :)[/quote]

there self adjusting, it makes no differance
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby b0yracer on Mon Jan 13, 2014 5:10 pm

nice guide cheers will be using it soon
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Re: Guide to replacing the cam and tappets on a cvh engine.

Postby jayrs on Mon Jan 13, 2014 7:53 pm

Cheers dude :)
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