After months of trying to track down a low oil pressure problem at hot idle, I discovered that I had a cam bearing had walked out of place. So after reading the accounts of a couple of other people who fixed it, I decided to attempt the repair myself.

The biggest repair that I had done so far was to replace my cracked oil pump gears last year. So I am by no means an expert. This job took me a total of 55 hours to complete which included: remove and replace cam bearing #4, head gaskets replaced, valve cover gaskets replaced, valve stem seals replaced, new spark plugs, new radiator, new cooling hoses, new throttle body heater plate and gasket, and replacing much of the plastic wiring conduit. I would say that none of this work was technically challenging, just very tedious. I also spent a lot of time cleaning parts.

Now some details on the walked cam bearing. I decided to do the repair without removing the engine. In hindsight, removing the engine would probably be easier, but I didn't have the equipment to do that. The engine was stripped down (heads removed, front cover off, camshaft out, etc) to where I could access the cam bearings. The radiator, trans cooler, and AC condenser also had to be removed. I also had to remove the back passenger-side piston so that I could reach down to remove the old bearing and to place in the new bearing and tool. The old bearing was barely being held in place. I just had to tap it with a pipe and it came right out.

SUVSMAN had recently done this repair and I bought his tool that he machined for the job. It is essentially a cylinder of steel that was machined to fit that specific bearing. I fitted a threaded rod to this tool and pulled the new bearing in by twisting a nut on the front of the engine (see pics for more details). The new bearing seemed to fit in snugly, so I am hopeful that it won't walk again.

Before the fix, my hot idle oil pressure was 7 PSI. Now it is 24 PSI.

So I am going to call this a victory.

 

Nice work. That's a pretty serious DIY job.