Previous owner had the heads redone awhile back and I never noticed it when I redid the valve cover gaskets. I'm wondering if this is the source of my camshaft wobble and slight knocking. Heres a pic. Looks like according to the fsm they are mixed up and backwards.



Should I even waste my time swapping them back or is it too far gone? I've probably put about 5k on it since I bought it. Just passed smog and runs fairly well. Just sounds like a rod knock but the rod bearings look good. I've almost saved up for a 3.4 so I might just let this thing grenade itself.

 

I had the same thing on my 3VZE; I just made sure the machine shop put the caps back on in the same (wrong) order.

In theory, the caps are identical. In practice, you can line-bore the caps once installed, to account for tiny differences in the way they seat. Then the caps shouldn't be moved around, as they may have head-side differences in how high they sit. So, in my case, I figured if they worked where they were, moving them around to match a casting number wasn't likely to improve anything.

But this is a microscopic effect. If you really have camshaft wobble, it isn't because of mixed caps.

 

Ok. Well I wonder what's causing it. I switched it with the other one and same thing.