Well I finally got my cam after a year of waiting and convincing the wife. Last night my buddy and got everything apart and the old cam out. No problems right, I take the new pretty TR224 and start to slide it in and it hits the third lifter in on the drivers side. Well I can reach that one and we push it back up. But while we are playing with that one the next one drops. It doesn't fall of the magnet until I touch it and try to pull it up. Then clank. it's gone. It doesn't hit the oil pan.

Pull the intake, pull the drivers side head and look down and I can actually see it resting on the crank. As soon as I reach in with about 4 magnets, (I seem to have a lot of them lying around) and I grab it, and just as my buddy tries to reach it with a pair of pliers, Clink, clank, it's hits the oil pan.

I'm praying I can drop the pan just enough to get it. Next time I use the rods, and the magnets.

 

Call it a learning experience . It'll still get done, just take a little longer. Good luck!! When she's purrin' like a kitten, you'll be looking back and laughin' at the experience....... I hope >

 

wow, what an adventure, hope you get it ok, thats a freakin nightmare. Atleast you didn't get electacuted....when I was helping with my buddies cam install he droped a retainer. Anyway there was this lamp we were using and it had a short or something. I was looking in the collectrors of the header (where it was) anyway I was bending down and when I came up my head hit the metal of the home made lamp and zapped the **** out of me, my buddie on the ground was looking for it also and he got zapped through me.

not as bad as your situation though...

 

Wow, that sucks. I used the JRP tool when I did mine.

 

Your probably gonna have to pull the oil pan all the way off. Dropping K-Member makes that possible, you don't have to take off the K-member just low enough to pull oil pan out. The lifter is more than likely sitting atop your windage tray.

 

sorry to hear man. just drop the k member and pull the pan no other way to sneak it out.

 

I went thru exactly what your going thru when I did my cam install.
Don't **** with dropping the kmember.

Take off Alternator, A/C compressor, and starter. Take out the big bolts in both your motor mounts. Jack up the engine from the bellhousing out of the mounts and put the bolts back in place (just as a safety precaution). Then completely take out all the bolts around your oil pan (8 around the base, and then 2 coming in from the bellhousing). Now that the pan is lowered as low as it can go, your going to see a tray that sits right below your crank, I'm willing to bet thats where your other lifter is sitting. Grab a 10mm (i think) wrench and lower than tray until you can pull the lifter out from the front of the engine.

Trust me, I spent days messing with how to get the lifter out of the oil pan, and finally, and luckily my flashlight caught a glimpse of the lifter sitting in sitting on the tray.

Goodluck

 

Wow, I want to do my own cam install....But it is my first one, and this makes it sound kind of scary. Screw that, ****, I am probably going to end up doing it anyway.

 

Just don't do what he did.


Seriously, don't use the pen magnet method. Use dowel rods and you will be fine.

 

Ive done a couple without using magnets or the rods...But I wouldnt even condsider doing it without those rods again. The magnet method absloutely sucks, in my opinion you are better off using nothing. Good luck man, its just gonna cost you a little more downtime.

 

The rods are so cheap, I don't see why anyone wouldn't use them. Think about how much time and worry it saves also. This shall be a learning experience, next time just spend $1.50 and pick up some 5/16 rolled steel rods from home depot, my friend.

 

Go to home depot and get a 5/16" wooden dowel, cut it in half and file down one end of each to a blunt point. spin the cam gear fast several times each way and then slide the dowels in slowly and gently, you'll feel it hit the back of the engine.

When I did my install, the dowels hadn't been really proven, or atleast there wasn't the talk about them there is now. So I used magnets, and the same thing happened, one slid down while I was putting my cam in.

Since then I've done another cam install and used the dowels (.69c at homedepot) and things couldn't have gone smoother.

 

Hell yes definately use the dowels!!! JP (FstBlkz28) had me scared when we did my cam install b/c it was right after he had his nightmare with the lifter.....but my cam install which we did with the dowels was flawless!!!

 

Some say use wood dowls others saying steel, why wood? arnt you running risk of splinters falling off when using wood? Then again they arnt damaging to metal.

Also when you shove the dowel in, it basically sits right on the roller of lifter or at the base of the lifter? Just trying to picture how it holds the lifter up with no way of falling.

Dixit

 

just take the heads off and do it that way, clean them out, take a look around in there. that way you can take the lifters out too

 

No, if you look at the lifter there is a 'groove' or 'notch' or i dunno how else to explain it about midway on the lifter. when the lifter is all the way up sitting in the lifter retainers, and u slide the dowel in, the dowel goes thru that 'notch/groove' and holds them up that way.

 

What is the purpose of filing to a blunt point? Are you saying cut in half to make two? Why not just buy two 5/16" dowel rods?

 

you only need to buy one dowel rod b/c they come long enough to cut in half and are still long enough to work....i think after you cut the rod in half you should have 2 24" pieces.....the block is 20 inches deep....when you slide the dowels in you will have about 4 inches of dowel sticking out the front to use as handles......also you file the rod to a blunt point so it has an easier time sliding past the lifters....you can use a pencil sharpener or pocket knife but we just rubbed them on the concrete to blunt the point up. Someone correct me if i'm way off about the depth of the block....it is way to early in the morning to be doing numbers!

 

Sorry about you dropping a lifter. That was my biggest worry. I had no luck with the JPR tool on the passenger side, so I used pen magnets with good luck on that side only. If I was doing it again I'd get the wooden dowels. Hang in there! You'll get it done.

 

Sorry to hear of your misfortune, I hope you get it going soon..