On shoebox's cam install page for the opti it says quote " Use new o-rings on the drive mechanism if yours are missing or brittle". Where exactly do these go on the opti and are there 1 or 2? I dont see any old ones anywhere. Also, for the water pump is there only 1 O-ring to install? I see one old one near the end of the splined shaft. My timing gasket set only has 2 O-rings but the intake manifold set has alot of O-rings. This is all on a 93 LT1 with unvented opti if that means anything. Thanks.

 

Well for '95-'97 LT1, there are two grooves in the back of the opti that slips inside the cam, each one having a o-ring. I have no idea what the drive mechanism (I think that means the spline drive of the opti in your case) looks like for a '93.

 

Yeah the 93's are considerably different. Maybe some 93 owners can chime in?

 

I only had one o-ring for the opti on the back of it and then I think there were 2 on the water pump dshaft...

 

I have a 94 and I tried using the o-rings on the opti shaft and its a bit small for it so I just used one for the water pump shaft on the timing cover and the other for the water pump. Not sure if that was right though!

 

To the best of my knowledge, at least on my '96, cause it's Opti is cam driven, two o-rings go on the drive shaft that seats in the camshaft, one o-rings goes on the water pump driveshaft, and the remaining o-ring goes on the water pump stub shaft coming out of the timing cover.

I assume the ones are on the opti drive in order to stabilize and locate the shaft in the nose of the cam, and allow for "manufacturing tolerances". The ones on the water pump driveshaft, I think, are there to keep dirt out of the splines of the shafts and the coupler.

 

So 2 of them goes on the splined shaft I assume? 1 on the cam gear side and the other on the opti side?

 

http://shbox.com/ci/water_pump.jpg

The splined opti shaft on non-vented optis don't use any o-rings. (note that things on my Tech Page say "for 1995 unless otherwise noted")

 

Thanks shoey!