M42 camshaft locking tool

Post Wed Jun 21, 2006 9:42 am

I was going to knock up a locking tool as per the diagram in the Haynes manual (for the M42 engine). I'm a bit suspicious of the dimensions - if you add up the figures along the bottom it's 1mm different to the overall length shown at the top of the pic! Apart from that I don't trust them - my old man once made a gearbox cradle for an old Range Rover using one of their drawings and found one dimension was 1" out!

Does it need to be that accurate anyway? Not sure what the clearances need to be like. Does anyone have a proper tool they could measure?

Here's the pic:

Post Sun Jun 25, 2006 5:55 pm

hi mate recently came across this problem myselt, Just use a set square! get both the cams to t.d.c (with the indentation on the flat of each cam upper most) then rest your set square on the face of the cylinder head use a spanner to turn the cam into the correct position,don't worry about the cams moving as they are not on a compression stroke, just make sure you rotate the engine four times after installing the chain and re-check the postion of your cam's using the trusty set square. I found this technique worked perfectly. p.s are you gonna use a modified tensioner?