Chrysler Sebring, Day 24

Started tearing into the motor this evening. Removed the timing chain and the camshafts without too much difficulty. The little bolts holding the cam bearing caps were a bit of a bear to loosen. Twelve point socket wouldn't hold and the only six-point, 10 mm socket I have is quarter-inch drive, so we had to rig up an extension for our mini-breaker bar in order to have enough torque to break them loose. Bigger problem was keeping track of all the bearing caps and cam followers. "Good practice" requires that these pieces be reinstalled in their original places. Fortunately the bearing caps are marked 1I (for Intake) thru 5E (for Exhaust) so we just had to put them in separate, marked boxes for the two the cylinder heads. The cam followers are not very big, and are very dark and oily, so even if they are marked, the marks are going to be difficult to read. I sacrificed one of our Lego storage boxes and just put one follower in each slot, and labeled the lid of the box.

Now we can pull the heads, but boy these bolts are tight. We resort to using the torque wrench to break them loose. We get two loose, and then the wrench starts slipping. Uh, oh, looks like we cracked it. Going to need a new one. That's going to have to be tomorrow, all the stores are closed now.

I am cleaning up and I happen to notice that the idler sprocket is sitting at an angle. What the heck? Is this some kind of special spring loaded bearing that allows it to flop around like this? Umm, no. The bearing is shot. While I am fooling with it a ball falls out and rolls across the floor. This explains the loose ball I found in the timing cover when I pulled it off yesterday. This sprocket also happens to drive the water pump. I am beginning to wonder how much more damage I have yet to discover. On the plus side, the cam bearings all look fine.

You might notice the confused labeling on the plastic box I used for the cam followers. Used to be in the good old days, when all cars had their engines in the front and employed rear wheel drive (the way god intended), that the front, rear, left and right sides of the engine corresponded to the same aspects of the car. Now though, with these cross-wise front wheel drive jobs it's a little hard to tell. Do directions on the engine correspond to the directions on the car, or do they correspond to the functions of the engine? The front of the engine used to have the pulley that drove all the accessories, and the rear of the engine attached to the transmission. If you look at it that way, then the left side of the engine is towards the front of the car, and the right side of the engine is towards the rear of the car. I guess the question is whether you are car centric, or engine centric. Well, bucky, which is it?