ghostmoney

I am in the middle of doing the timing belt, waterpump, cam seals, and crank seal. Last weekend I did this to another 3rd gen 4runner and the cam seals removed very easily with the lisle puller.
This time they are stuck in there and the tool is not pulling them out and just tearing up the seal.

I need to change out the valve cover gasket and was wondering if I can just remove the front camshaft cap to get to the cam seals or if that would mess anything up with the cam shafts.

ToyotaDon

That will definitely make it easier to get the seals out. The Lisle puller usually works best for seals that don't have a shaft in them at the time. I tend to just go with a screwdriver for cam seals.

Malcolm99

It is not advised to remove 1 cam cap at a time, all of them should be loosened equally bit at a time in a staggered pattern to avoid stressing/warping the cam shaft. drill a very small hole in the steel face of the seal and thread a course threaded screw into it and pry out.

vasinvictor

iTrader: (3)

I know it's not recommended, but I would definitely just take the front cam cap off if it were mine. As long as all the others stayed in position the cam won't flex. If you are totally removing the camshaft, then yes definitely remove in a pattern. Some numb-skull probably RTV'd that seal in there.

ghostmoney

Thanks, I was thinking the camshaft wont flex with all the other caps being torqued down.