Thinking back on it, I also wanted the cam sprockets off because I wanted to change the front seals. The camshafts are about, say, 18 feet long, so I figured it would be more painful starting from the back. I realized too late that the bolt holes are slotted. Why can't anybody key anything anymore??
When reinstalling, I found some all-rubber bungee cords with rubber loops at each end at the hardware store. They were fantastic at holding the cams to the cam cover by stretching them end-to-end of each camshaft, with no fear of scoring from metal hooks.
It's a mercy that there's enough room in the engine bay of the 960 for me to stand, because I don't know how I would've gotten the head back in; that sucker is long and heavy, aluminum or not.
I bought a scantool per Henry10's recommendation and should be able to take a look at the car later this week. I've made a deal with my wife that for each major undertaking on a car, I do one house project, so now that the ceramic tile is laid and grouted in the kitchen, I get to go back out to the garage and play. I'll let y'all know what I find. Thanks again for all the help!
--dan

 

why leave the cams in to remove thehead? its safer to take them out.

bungee cord the cams to the valve cover?
place the cams back in the head. set the valve cover inplace with the plastic cam cover. line up the cams and clamp the cover down.

you can do it with the cover bolts, just be very careful and go very slow. do no put too much torque on any one bolt. you could even set a torque wrench to about 10lbs.

 

No argument there. I did remove the cams and actually had to, to get to all the head bolts without banging my socket into the cam surfaces.
I found that it was easier to secure the cams to the valve cover because that way they would at least be seated in one set of the bearing journals (the uppers). I tried setting the cams in place in the head at first, but because all of the valves are closed, neither of the cams will sit down in their journals. Having applied the sealant to the head surface, I didn't want the cams to shift to one side or the other before being seated in their bearing journals while drawing down the cam cover bolts. Personal preference, I guess, but it really did work better for me (and wasn't my idea in the first place, I got the tip from this forum).

On a couple of other notes, I did receive my scantool and replaced all of the vacuum hoses this past weekend. I did the vacuum check recommended earlier and the engine idles with a rock-steady 19" vacuum. Throttle blips cause the vacuum to momentarily drop to close to 0". So, the engine fits well with scenarios 1 and 2 in the guide. Running at higher engine speeds and then sidestepping the throttle causes it to go from 19" up to around 23", which is lower than scenario 3 and closer to scenario 4, but the engine is fairly slow to decelerate so I don't know if that's really a problem or not. Anyway, scenario 4 says it's probably due to worn rings and we ain't going there. During reassembly, compression was very good on all cylinders, so that's my story and I'm sticking with it...

Checking with the scantool, base idle timing is 9degBTDC. Thinking about this, I don't think it would tell me one way or the other if my exhaust cam timing is off, unless it's really grossly off, since the system has plenty of authority to retard the timing as necessary to get it to 9. With these checks and all of the other vacuum hoses replaced, there's still quite a bit of throttle tip-in ticking, so I am going to pull the cam position sensor off the back of the exhaust side and check the slot alignment.

 

My money is on Cam/s being off. It's hard to dial them correctly back-there without the aligning tool (not trying to knock off your fine motor skills). Just curious What were you compression numbers? Although none of this is very meaningful until timing is correct, and I think you are slightly off.

 

IIRC the relationship line-slot on the Intake side is the opposite of the Exh. If they are horizontal for example -- On Intake side, line is at the top of the slot; on Exh Side, line is at the bottom. I am sure you have this correctly, but I was just thinking out loud.

 

Thanks for the advice. I will check and post the compression numbers after I check/adjust the cam timing. If I'm in this for the long haul then it may be worth purchasing the toolkit for installing the head/cams. I also have an 850GLT wagon that I bought because it blew a head gasket, so I'll be diving in again anyway.

I was aware of the slot alignment difference on the camshafts. The decent part of it is that it's impossible to align the slot "upside down" and then install the cam sprocket in such a way as to align the marks up front, since the cam sprocket is held onto the cam with three bolts. So there's at least another mercy.