i couldnt believe it either. while this was sitting over the summer i had a 1990 mazda miata to play around with. i noticed some oil was leaking onto the park plugs so i went ahead and changed the valve cover gasket. when i opened her up i was simply amazed at how clean my miata was after 95k miles and 21 years.

my jag on the other hand is a completely different story. when i opened up the valve covers i couldnt believe what i saw. that stuff isnt harming anything so im not to worried about it

 

Mine was pristine inside at 60K. It all depends on the previous care the car recieved and if there were overheating events.

 

A lot of these cars in the US are lease vehicles paid for by corporations or other legal entities whose driver could care less about maintenance of the cars. They do not even care about a 'free' oil change. Drive it for a year or two and never see it again.

I have a friend that bought a Mercedes, 50k miles, for a great price that had engine failure shortly after purchase. The dealer that the car was originally purchased from and then resold the car estimated that the original oil had never been changed.

 

I did my upper tensioners at 40K this last may. If you want to see what my engine looked like go to my profile under posts that I started at the bottom of the first page you will see eleven pictures and I think the engine looks pretty clean. I'm not the original owner so I guess I'm lucky. I am using Mobil one oil.

EZDriver

 

todays the day guys. 1 quick question, what do i have to torque the tensioners down to, what do i have to torque the cam down to and what do i need to torque the valve cover down to?

 

According to JTIS, which you should get yourself a copy of (see FAQ);

Tensioners: 10 - 14 Nm

Cam Caps: 9 - 11 Nm

Cam covers: 9 - 11Nm

Good luck.

 

someone help me asap! i removed the cap and brackets on the lower exhaust cam, removed the bolts for the tensioner and there is still a tremendous amount of tension on the lower cam. i tried loosening the caps on the upper tensioner and no help. someone please tell me y there is so much pressure that i cant even move the lower cam

 

Robably because one of the cams is pointing down.

By the way, with reistating the stuff , you do not really need a torque wernch. Just hand tight will do, unless you are a person who is snapping bolts often.

 

do you have the tension tool?

 

to upgrade u all on what has been going on, i found a reason y the cam had so much tension. there was some kind of plastic piece that broke and got wedged into the cam sprockets. i looked at the plastic piece on the other side and found it really doesnt do anything. i just removed the plastic pieces and it released the tension. i put everything on and started the car and now she is running perfect. i drove about 100 miles yesterday in it and there are no problems to report. thank you all for the help!!

 

Yes I have. I borrowed the correct tools to lock down the cams...AND I followed the instructions to secure the flywheel, too. I wasn't going to risk my engine by being impatient.

 

"....some kind of plastic piece..."?

Okaaaaaayyyy. You probably should have posted back up and asked us. I hope it's just the LAST of some broken off tensioner plastic.

 

man thats a beautiful thing when you can work on your car. but the money thing is another issue.

 

i dont know how to explain it but when ur looking at the main chain going down to the bottom of the motor there is some kind of plastic that sticks out maybe half an inch and it comes out from under the chain. it connected to a larger piece of plastic that i can really tell what it is but it doesnt come in contact with the chain at all. its basically useless unless the chain sags, then it would hit that plastic thing but if that happened it would just break off.

 

Sounds like a piece of the primary timing chain guide may be about to let loose.

 

you can see that its not a very important piece. that plastic was very flimsy small and thin piece. the part the plastic was attached to is not harmed in anyway and feel very tight.

 

I wasn't impatient either, I took two weeks to do the job, lol.

Whatever makes you feel warm and fuzzy, just seems like a lot of unnecessary tools and work for a very simple job.

BTW, you didn't answer my question...how could the crank "turn?"
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