My friends 3VZE blew the drivers headgasket, and I agreed to do his headgaskets. I took the heads to a machine shop to have them resurfaced and completely rebuilt so that we dont have to deal with any future headaches and given the age of the vehicle. Long story short, the machineshop called today and they said they found one of the camshafts to have a crack at the lip of the journal. I didnt think anything of it so I started googling 3VZE camshaft to find a used one. Well this thread came up, https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...notice-118381/

As you can imagine now I'm wondering if they damaged the crankshaft. Does anyone have a FSM that talks about how to remove the camshaft? The one I found just says to gradually loosen each cap, also I didn't quite understand what the guy was saying in his thread about rotating the camshaft. Wont the camshaft be under load by one of the valves regardless of which position it's in? Lastly, I'm having a hard time finding camshafts, i guess this is a common issue/mistake so the supply of used camshafts has dried up. Has anyone used these chinese stuff? Rockatuo carries cams made by ITM, a brand which I havn'tt heard of and screams chinese so I'm a little weary. I'd really appreciate feedback on this.

This is a 94 pickup by the way if it matters.

 

Not unusual for the passenger side cam to crack just behind the first cam bearing. Seems to be caused by not rotating the cam ever so slightly to take the spring tension off before removing the cam caps.. 3 choices, new cam, used cam, or reinstall old cam and dont worry about it. If it is cracked some where else like the shaft or lob i would be looking for a replacement.

 

can you expand on that a little bit? Is there a sweet spot where the cam is not in contact with any of the valves? When I was rotating it to clear my socket for the head bolts it seemed like regardless of where I was it was under load.

 

At TDC with both cam sprockets on their marks, timing belt removed, if you rotate the passenger side camshaft ever so slightly (sorry cannot remember if left or right, but to the right sticks in my mind), it almost moves on its own till it stops . There is still some spring tension but not near as much as at TDC. Release all cam caps as equally as possible. What happens in most cases is the rear of the camshaft comes up and causes part of that camshaft flange to hit the cam cap and crack it. The flanges purpose is to limit cam walk.
Also be carefull of the front passenger side cam cap and rear driver side cam cap bolts stripping out the threads in the heads. Because of the indexing rings inserted into the heads on those holes there is very little thread left for the bolts and they strip easily. IMHO Toyota should have used just a tad longer bolt for those 4 holes.
Hope that helps some.

 

My personal recommendation regarding a replacement cam is to try and find a decent used one that's OEM. I tried a new Chinese one and it wore horribly. I thought I had failed to do something, but than I was talking with a few of my old techs and they said they had seen three of those aftermarket cams on different vehicles that had failed recently. Two had broke in the middle and one had worn like mine.

 

↑↑↑↑↑Wise words in Jimkola post. OEM if at all possible. I had a similar experience with other branded camshafts in my 3vze.

 

Should be a cam lobe there.