I'm in the process of building up the top end of my '93 960 wagon, had the exhaust cam in a clamp to remove the three bolts and sprocket from the cam and the clamp marred the surface where I had a mark that registered with the notch on the upper timing belt cover, making my mark indistinguishable from other scratches from the clamping! Argh!!!!!- Is there any hope for this situation? Any suggestions?

-Thanks

 

Be sure to have the crank on it's mark, that way when you experiment with possible settings there will not be any interference. With the crank on it's mark, all of the pistons will be down below the deck so the valves will clear without contact.

Now hopefully you also marked the relation ship between the cam gear and the cam. There is really no reason to separate them anyway, unless you needed to replace the cam seals.

You will have to use the groove that is on the rear end of the cam, the volvo special tool uses that groove by lining the two cam grooves up in the same plane.

Install the intake cam first, get it correctly positioned, then place the exhaust cam with the groove at the rear in the same plane as the intake, the grooves are off center so how ever the intake is positioned the exhaust will have to be too.

Be sure to lube up the bearing points on the cams so they will turn freely.

I would also take out the spark plugs once you have everything done, maybe artificially tension the timing belt, incase you have to reposition things again, but once you think you have things correctly in place, hand crank the engine over two whole revolutions, doe this without the spark plugs inplace, it should be fairly easy, be sure to keep tension on the timing belt so it does not slip, if it makes two whole revs with out hitting any valves, release the real tensioner and do two more revs.

When you reattach the cam gears to the cams, position the slotted holes in the center, that is where the factory set them when the engine was built.

I would leave the spark plugs in to protect from something falling down there, but once you are sure then remove them to make turning easier.


DanR '94 964 354,000 miles (120,000 on the new engine)

 

Thank you Dan,
I followed your advice (short of having the cam locking tool) I got everything back together.....again, took it for a test drive....no oil leak, engine nice and cool, but the drive was very sluggish with no horsepower...even with the pedal floored....got up to 35 mph. Drove two miles total and when I pulled into the driveway, I noticed the CAtalytic converter was glowing red hot. Too much fuel? Timing off? Your help is greatly appreciated!

-Phillip

 

If it is running, could you could still be off by a tooth? Did you have to do a lot of trial and error? If it was moved one tooth either way was the crank able to rotate at those cam settings? What I am trying to determine, does the crank rotate at only that one setting that you are at now?

You may have the timing perfect after all, and are experiencing a separate problem, crossed coils, crossed injectors, vacuum leak, oil separator leaking air.

Can you get a hold of a vacuum gauge? Might help narrow things down.

DanR