Does anyone know where I can buy these vvt cam gear seals? I've read on other posts and can see from the pictures that they are square cut seals. I also looked for 8.5mm x 2mm seals that migbro posted and had no luck. Any help would be appreciated.

 

You will have to ask migbro to find out what he used. But I do not think they are square cut, they just look like that once they get old and start conforming to the sides of the cylinder they are in.

Whatever you do do not use the plain black o-rings you find in auto parts stores. You need good Buna-N (Nitrile) or Viton (Fluorocarbon Type A) material to stand up to the oil and high temps. I think this is why so many people who have replaced that o-ring have had failures... using cheap rubber o-rings.

I just replaced the entire VVT gear once it started leaking. I had read many posts online of others who replaced that o-ring just to have it fail within a month and ruin the new timing belt. After that is when migbro started researching the cause of VVT failures and found that that piston/o-ring is really just there to plug the hole. It does not move. Knowing this now, if I had a leak again, I would simply seal up the hole entirely using a high temp epoxy or something similar.

 

my parts store bookmarks include:

FCPEURO.COM
EUROPARTS.COM
TASCAPARTS.COM (Volvo dealer discounted mail order)
VOLVOPARTSWAREHOUSE.COM (OEM deal parts)
CAR-PART.COM (used part yard search)
AUTOHAUSAZ.COM (yeah I own a VW CC too)

There are more but I'm a cheap old guy and the first two are here in CT so I get fast delivery.