Valve cover stripped threads

[ahair121]

I'm currently repairing a botched timing chain job that some shop did (previous owner). In the process of putting everything back together I had some of the valve cover studs come out with the threads before I could get them to torque spec, which is almost nothing so that tells me these were probably over torqued before. Anyway it's at a bad angle which makes repairing hard. Can I pull the (cam shaft bearing?) - see photo I'm not sure what the part is called. Then maybe I could use helicoil to fix the threads? Or since the torque specs are so low would loctite thread repair be fine?

[oldskewel]

Many ways to solve this, some you've mentioned. Take your pick based on what you've got and how bad the problem seems. You're right about the low torque meaning it's not so critical, but you do need to worry about causing a problem.

One name for those things is: camshaft bearing cap

But in case they are not obvious, here are some things to avoid:
- don't let any debris from your work (including pulled threads already) get into that area

- if you're going with the option of removing those caps while you helicoil / re-tap / etc., you might need to worry about bending the camshaft if not done carefully. I know that's the case for my M54's hollow camshafts. So I would remove the caps only one at a time, reinstalling the one you just fixed before moving to the next one. Another thing you can do is to rotate the cam (and of course crank and other cams will all rotate together) so the valves right next to the one cap you're removing are fully seated. That will mean the valve springs are not pushing up hard on the cam lobes to potentially deform the camshaft.

[ahair121]

Originally Posted by oldskewel

Many ways to solve this, some you've mentioned. Take your pick based on what you've got and how bad the problem seems. You're right about the low torque meaning it's not so critical, but you do need to worry about causing a problem.



One name for those things is: camshaft bearing cap



But in case they are not obvious, here are some things to avoid:

- don't let any debris from your work (including pulled threads already) get into that area



- if you're going with the option of removing those caps while you helicoil / re-tap / etc., you might need to worry about bending the camshaft if not done carefully. I know that's the case for my M54's hollow camshafts. So I would remove the caps only one at a time, reinstalling the one you just fixed before moving to the next one. Another thing you can do is to rotate the cam (and of course crank and other cams will all rotate together) so the valves right next to the one cap you're removing are fully seated. That will mean the valve springs are not pushing up hard on the cam lobes to potentially deform the camshaft.

Thank you very much. I think I will remove the caps and carefully re-thread them outside of the engine. Making sure the cams are fully seated was great advice. Thank you for your response.


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