So the saga continues.

This is the car that conked out the day I bought it due to low oil pressure.

 

It's had a new oil pump, multiple flushes and a new pickup pipe.

 

I've also replaced all the suspension, and bought an H&R ARB kit (never fitted - might soon be for sale!). Not massively relevant to this thread, but just an outpouring over the amount of money thrown at this car...

 

Came to dismantle head tonight to replace chain tensioner (taken out by oil starvation I suspect) and found that journal cap 4 and the journal itself are toast on the inlet camshaft.

 

Question for everyone on here. Does anyone have a spare inlet cam and the original retaining caps?

I'm aware that they are inline bored, but I reckon that I've got half a chance if I get 4 and try them all for fit.

 

It would be a shame if it was the end of the road from an otherwise good car...

 

All help/advice/spare camshafts and retaining caps gratefully received!!

 

 

EDIT... Picture of the journal and retaining cap added... It's not pretty :-@

Edited 21 June, 201510 yr by BlackMaria

you need a new engine my friend

Agreed with above, suitable replacement engine are readily available on eBay, or just put a replacement head on it.

Thought I'd provide an update on this.

Bought a head from ebay and used it for donor parts.

Got my old boy over to help me as he's an aircraft engine engineer.

We took lifters out of my head and dropped new cam in.

Taking the lifters out enabled me to torque the cam up on all bearings (bar the one that died from oil starvation) and because there's no valve spring tension (lifters taken out) we could turn the cam by hand by hand.

Then we systematically fitted each of the donor bearing caps and torqued down.

First bearing retainer was too tight and I couldn't turn the cam.

Repeated until we found a donor cap that was spot on.

As a crosscheck we then removed all caps except the tensioner and the donor cap.

No discernible play whatsoever.

Put the whole thing back together, making sure we drowned the top end in engine oil and started her up.

Sweet as a nut!

That was 2500 miles ago, weekly daily driving to work and a family holiday to Cornwall and back and it hasn't missed a beat.

So the moral of the story is don't be too hasty to scrap your 1.8t just because of a bit of black sludge ;-)