camshaft bearing caps

[Laughing Gnome]

I am having a difficult time finding these. Dealer will sell me a head and cam but no camshaft bearings. Junkyard wont part out a head for these either. Does anybody have an old head laying around that I may buy some from. Its from a 1993 4x4 pickup DLX with a 22re.

[Hilux]

I also need to know if these are things that cannot be swapped and if they are, need to be line bored b/c they are head specific.

[WristPin]

does not use servicable bearings

the bearing caps are unique to the head. if the surface is slightly worn, you may be able to scuff it, and use a plastigauge to determine oil clearance.

other wise you must buy a head.

[Hilux]

Originally Posted by WristPin

does not use servicable bearings

the bearing caps are unique to the head. if the surface is slightly worn, you may be able to scuff it, and use a plastigauge to determine oil clearance.

other wise you must buy a head.

Damnit, i just bought a 20R head at pull apart and guess what one thing was missing?

one dang cap

[Hilux]

Originally Posted by WristPin

does not use servicable bearings

the bearing caps are unique to the head. if the surface is slightly worn, you may be able to scuff it, and use a plastigauge to determine oil clearance.

other wise you must buy a head.

can you get any cap for it, line bore it over size, and get an oversize cam for it?

isn't that what most your engine re manufactures do?

[WristPin]

if you over bore it, i would suspect the bearing would spin, cause there is no notch groove for the bearing tab to sit in. if you did manage to bore it, and notch it, you would want to have the ID of the bearing match that of the factory spec, so you dont have to over size the cam

maybe you could try another beaing cap off your old head. just use a plastigauge in a lot of places to determine the clearance.

[KLF]

Originally Posted by WristPin

if you over bore it, i would suspect the bearing would spin, cause there is no notch groove for the bearing tab to sit in

Huh??? There is no "bearing" to spin. It's a simple journal, no seperate bearing.

As I understand it, the caps are matched to the head. This is why the dealer can't sell you just the cap, my EPC confirms that they are not available individually. I suppose you could try it with another one, Plastigage it, see what you get. The cap and head are softer aluminum, so if it doesn't work it shouldn't damage the cam.

[Tools R Us]

Originally Posted by Hilux

can you get any cap for it, line bore it over size, and get an oversize cam for it?

isn't that what most your engine re manufactures do?

Back in the day when I was doing motors, we did. The procedure was; mill a little off of the cap mating surfaces, install the boring tool and caps, bore the holes back round. This lowered the cam slightly in the head, on most heads it wasn't a problem. Most times this was done to repair warped heads, when the sealing surface is flattened, the top side and more importantly the cam bore has a slight bow, not the best for a smooth turning cam!

A couple of points: The jig that holds the boring bar is specific to each type of head, so unless you do a lot of one type of head they aren't worth it. Most of our jigs were machined in house, but still they took a lot of work to make them properly. It's a high labor, fiddly job, with todays high labor rates and throwaway mentality it's probably not cost effective to do it.

The alloy head to steel cam makes a pretty good bearing, as long as they are fitted properly and properly oiled. I have seen them go bad, most of the time the alloy melts and sticks to the cam, locking it up, sometimes resulting in a broken cam.

[WristPin]

Originally Posted by KLF

Huh??? There is no "bearing" to spin. It's a simple journal, no seperate bearing.

As I understand it, the caps are matched to the head. This is why the dealer can't sell you just the cap, my EPC confirms that they are not available individually. I suppose you could try it with another one, Plastigage it, see what you get. The cap and head are softer aluminum, so if it doesn't work it shouldn't damage the cam.

yeah, yeah, I know.
Im just saying, if you were to *try* and fix it, by boring where the messed up cap is, you couldnt get far, cause in order to fill in the space, you would need a bearing, and that bearing wouldnt stay put, cause there is no knotch. cause i dont think you could buy a cam that had 3 regular size journals, and one over size journal to compensate for the cap you just bored.