Piss and $^#%^&*$ when I get this car back together again that fu454357476ing w$#%Q&#&ker of an expert is going to get a size 12 foot up his arse... the no good slimy shifty c%$^**$&^&*k sucking shrunken left armed inbred freak.

...aaaand count to ten

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....ress_ball.jpeg


....release. Now give us a hug and get back to work.

Yeah I know - thanks.

Sometimes my Italian rage gets the better of me - I'm calm now!

Cheers. I learned early on not to trust the PO - or a former mechanic. Just because it WAS assembled that way and seemed to work doesn't mean it's right.

Does this mean you're going to replace your filed-down valve shaft?

I just double-checked the engine manual and there is not a single reference to the correct installation of the 2 or 3 towers in the valve section, but I also found some other naked valve pics. And JT20 is correct, 2 over 1+2, 3 over 3+4+5.

Repositioned the rocker towers - little difference!
 

Well I've got the group of three over cylinders 3, 4, and 5 and whilst the towers slot nicely into place I'm still not happy with all of the positions of the rockers under the cam lobes.

There seems to be an accumulative error from the rockers over cylinder 5 (which seem to be correctly aligned) towards the rockers sitting over cylinder 3.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...1&d=1297160370

The camshaft end play is correct and within limits.

The camshaft towers are all in good order.

The rocker arm towers show wear marks on their surfaces where the rocker arms butt up next to them but this is a slight surface polishing - no deep grooves.

I'm getting fed up with this...

Army,
If you loosen & remove the hold bolt on tower 3 , can you line the rocker on the lobe?
If you can, then you need to reposition the bolt hole.
I still suspect that the towers are different & they are in the wrong order. There are only 6 different ways that they could go.
Its a bit like that game with the prize under the inverted cups that are shuffled around. probably the PO mixed them up. Maybe tower 1 or 2 should be tried over cyl 3.

Good luck!!! :D

Thanks layback40 - I know what you mean... unfortunately all of the towers (that I have anyway) have the same part number despite the discrepancies in manufacture. I asked the dealer if the towers that I have are correct on not. He said they were the good ones...

...all of the towers fit snugly on their locating rings - as you'd expect.

I'm still fiddling with this problem. I'm trying to work out which bit is slightly out before I make any further modifications!

I wonder if in the past an owner dealt with this and found the comprimise you found when taking the engine apart was the best.I would seriously consider going back and modify what was present when you opened up the engine. Harder to deal with what I see now. The offset is much greater.

Also the surface of the rocker arms wear faces are surface hardened. I have worn through them on mercedes gas engines. Until that hardness is breeched there is little wear or the rate of wear is minimal. If the rocker faces are radiused as well the manufacturer may have allowed for these mismatches.

To wear down until grooving occurs may take at least a couple of hundred thousand miles if that radius is there.

Checked the camshaft!
 

Well I've just checked the positions of the camshaft lobes on my two camshafts - I've still got the old 05 code camshaft and there's a new code 11 sitting in the engine now.

The data for that is here:-

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showpost.php?p=2658146&postcount=23

Direct link to the data in the pdf file => http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/attachment.php?attachmentid=89449&d=1297241940

I can't see any problems with the camshaft though - everything is more or less in the same place - bearing in mind I've only got a 150mm vernier caliper and I'm measuring the positions of things on a half meter length...

I'm going to see if there is any play in the location of the first cam shaft tower - I'm going to loosen it and see if I can shove it back a bit - if there is half a millimeter there then I'm laughing. (The camshaft is held in place on this first tower - between a lip on the camshaft and the thrust washer and camshaft cog on the other side of the tower)

Well that was clutching at straws - the first camshaft tower didn't move!

I get the impression that whoever put the rocker groups the wrong way round did not have a clue what they were doing - they left the engine in a much worse state than it is now - the group of two towers which were over cylinders 4 and 5 were forced into place. This bent the spindle / rocker shaft which then meant the rocker faces were not parallel to the cam lobes. I think that is really crappy mechanics...

..whilst they forced the rocker towers into place they mangled a steel locating ring with a light aluminum alloy tower and the (steel) locating bolt - what a bunch of kippers.

Anyway - whilst I am adamant that I will not copy exactly what these numpties did - I will consider which of the two positions suit my engine. Thanks again for the advice.

Army,
Numbers mean nothing!! Until you have tried all towers, any discrepancy is an unknown. It is feasable that at the time of manufacture/assembly the edges of the towers could be machined to suit the head. You should be able to install a tower without the shaft & place the rockers against it with the cam lobes up & see if you have alignment. That is what I would be doing. I have every reason to suspect the PO had it in pieces, mixed the towers up & installed them in any order. As you have extras now, it may be worth a try to see if you can get a better match.

Will do!

I've just visited the dealer and spoke with their chief mechanic. He reckons it is more important to have the bases securely fitted. He thinks any changes to the structure should be made by removing metal from the top of the towers and adding thrust shims on the other side if necessary.

He was a bit disconcerted that the camshaft doesn't fit too well on the back two camshaft mounts but that it fits well on the front two.

Posting photographs here on this forum has an added benefit when your technical Dutch language skills are lacking - you can say "well have a look at this on the internet"... and the mud becomes clearer!

I forgot to say
 

Just in case anyone is reading through this thread and thinks "bloody hell what is all the fuss about - why not just put it together and be done with it?".

I asked the dealer's chief mechanic if he had ever seen this before - his answer was no.

He went on to say that it was - in his opinion - very important not to have the kind of discrepancies that are being talked about here:- 0.5mm to 1mm or more is too much.

There should be a nice centre line running through the cam lobe - through the centre of the cam follower (rocker arm) - through the centre of the valve stem nuts - through the centre line of the valve.

That is what I'm trying to achieve. That is why I'm squealing like a pig!

Army,
You are 100% right in trying to fix the offset. Any one that suggests you just run with it like that is from the same mob as the previous owner. You posted a video about that sort of mentality recently in OD !!
From your posts it is clear that the problem was there before you got the car.
My guess is that it wasnt like that before the PO got his hands dirty.

The symptoms you have sound a lot like the ones an Isuzu here had after a timing belt failure & I am very suspicious that the PO has had a valve timing issue & had valves hit pistons & so bend the rocker shaft & maybe a tower as they are nice & soft.
It is clear that it wasnt fixed properly previously.
With a good tower bolted down square, the rockers should line up. are all the towers identical when in that position? Always the same offset? Have you tried swapping the rockers around?