Center camshaft seal depth

[tadd]

Masters of the six:

Can anyone please tell me know how deep the center lube oil seal is supposed to seat into the cam box cover? I have seals and I have covers but can't seem to find a value... Drive em till they go no more? How deep is the cam box recess? Is that a critical depth?

Thanks a bunch in advance,
t

[lindy 911]

Tadd,

I must be missing something here. On a 911 SC motor there are no "seals" in the cam box cover other than an o-ring on the pressure fed tensioners and the gaskets between the cover and the box. Neither of these have any adjust-ability. Maybe post a little more info like year and model. There is an o-ring in the cam carrier that bolts into the cam box but it too has no adjust-ability.

Lindy

[tadd]

Lindy:
You are correct, I should have spelled things out a bit more. Thanks for the hint .

Round 2:
Type 901/01 (65-66) motors (the first 3,500ish?) along with the 906 had center lube camshafts. There is a seal made of brass, ceramic, and rubber with an internal spring the pushes the ceramic disk against the cam face so that oil can forced into the hollow cam (and out holes in the base of the lobes).

I got new seals a while back as they were becoming hard to find, I think they are NLA now, and I have the correct cam box covers. They seem to be a light press fit. I just don't know how deep to press them in the holes. Too much (not touching) would be as bad as too little (spring in coil bind). One would assume the engineers made it stupid proof and bored the receiving holes to the required depth so that during instillation the seals seat at the bottom of the hole. However, given the age of the parts I wanted a measurement to ensure the parts hadn't been machined at some point.

t

[BURN-BROS]

Tadd,

The seals are spring loaded to take up any variance in cam position. press seals in untill they seat(there should be a shoulder that you press to). Verify that the seal makes contact with the cam and that the seal does not bottom out before the timing cover is fully seated.

[tadd]

Aaron:
Thanks. Once again I read too much into it.

That said, you wouldn't happen to know how deep the hole to the seat is would you? It would do my OCD a ton of good .

t

[BURN-BROS]

Originally Posted by tadd

Aaron:
Thanks. Once again I read too much into it.

That said, you wouldn't happen to know how deep the hole to the seat is would you? It would do my OCD a ton of good .

t

I have never had a chance to measure but we can get a close number based on one of my covers. dimensions are taken from the machined surface that you put the timing cover gasket on.

seal fully extended is approx 8mm
seal fully compressed is approx 5.75mm
add approx 1mm for the gasket

measure the distance between snout of the cam and the gasket surface of the timing housingwith a straight edge.

cam would need to be within the distance provided above to do it's job.
With the gasket accounted for I would hope to run 6.5mm-7mm. This will all depend on chain parallelity

[Henry Schmidt]

I hope this helps.
10.65 mm
Cheers

[tadd]

Henry:
Magnificent!

Thanks for taking the time...

t