twilightprotege
Member
- :
- 2001 323 Astina SP20 (P5)
HOW TO : Mazda FS-DE Camshaft Installation
Precautions
- Make sure the engine is cold (good idea to leave it sitting overnight)
- Give yourself a day to do the work
- Trust yourself. It is a relatively easy but very time consuming for the beginner and can become a little frustrating at times.
- This is just a guide. Do not blame me is you stuff up and your engine goes boom.
What you need
- Torque wrench
- Metric sockets (10mm, 12mm, 14mm, 17mm, 21mm)
- Impact wrench
- Engine oil
- Marker pen
- Friend
- Patience
- 1 Day to work on your car
1. Disconnect the negative battery terminal. This is just a safety step.
2. This step is just for those who have the plastic engine cover on their engine (me). Unbolt the nuts on your plastic cover. Youll need a 10mm socket for this. See picture below
3. Remove the ignition coils. Unclip the wires from it then youll once again need a 10mm socket to take off the coils. Naturally, also remove the spark leads at the same time. See picture below. I recommend leaving the spark leads attached to the coil so you are putting the car back together exactly the same as it was before. Also remove the spark plugs.
4. Unclip the wiring harness from the points in the picture below. There are actually two connectors at the bottom point and also a little zip-tie like thing to the right of it. Once that wiring harness is not connected to anything, put it out of the way on top of the intake manifold.
5. In the middle of the head cover there is a little pipe that needs to be pulled out. Once you have that out, your engine bay should look like the picture below.
6. Now we start to really get into business. Remove the bolts on the head cover in the order numbered in the picture below. Youll need a 10mm socket for this. Remove each bolt a few turns at a time. At point 7, remove the bolt you cant quite see in the picture. The one you can see (one top of the engine cover does nothing. Its only there for the spark leads.
7. Once you have all the bolts out. Remove the head cover. The below picture is what you should see.
8. Remove the top timing belt cover. I didnt take a picture of this, but there are 4 bolts you need to take out, 2 on each side. 10mm socket is required here. Once you have undone the bolts and have them out, just remove the plastic cover.
9. Remove the number 3 engine mount. Dont worry, the other 3 engine mounts are enough to hold the engine just fine just dont leave your car like this for months. The nuts on the engine are 17mm and the nuts and bolts on the car are 14mm. See picture below. The circle with only pipes underneath it there is a bolt under the pipes, you just cant see it from the angle I took the picture at.
10. Now the pain in the arse jobs begin. You need to remove the 2 drive belts. The outer one does the power steering oil pump and the air conditioning compressor. You remove this one first. In the below picture you loosen the no 1 bolt out about 5mm. That is a 12mm bolt. Next there are two bolts you need to loosen hidden under number 2. They are both 10mm bolts. If you are looking from this direction, you loosen 1 bolt on your right, 1 bolt right in front of you. These bolts are used for adjusting the tension of the drive belt. Once you have loosened these bolts enough, the drive belt should be able to come off.
11. The inner belt is the alternator and water pump drive belt. Its too cluttered down there so I didnt take a picture, but its pretty much the same, but upside down as the power steering bolts. If you can imagine the above picture upside down, the places of the bolts are in the same place. And to make your life much easier to get to the adjusting bolts, now is a good time to put the car up on jacks, thats what I did.
12. While you have your car up on jacks, turn the steering all the way to the right. That just allows easier access to the crankshaft pulley for later and allows you to take off the underneath plastic cover. There are 5 bolts I think, all 10mm, and 1 clip to the left of the driveshaft as you look at it from the side of the car.
13. In preparation for the next step, rotate the crank (I just used a socket and bar) so that the engine is a top dead centre. You may need a friend to help you align this otherwise youll be moving it 2mm then jumping up and checking the mark and so on. If you look down on top of the engine where the engine mount was, you can see the crankshaft pulley. On the engine side of the pulley youll see a little plastic marking thing showing out of it. It will have a 10 and a T plus a lot of straight up and down lines. This is the timing marks. To find top dead centre you rotate the crank around (clockwise) so that the yellow mark on the crank pulley is in line with the T. Once that is in line, check the cam pulleys. There is a mark on the intake cam sprocket, I, and this needs to be pointing towards the E mark on the exhaust cam sprocket. If they are not, rotate the crank pulley a further 360 degrees.
14. Next we need to remove the crankshaft pulley. The crankshaft pulley is right at the bottom of the engine and you can see the big bolt connecting it to the crank from the side of the car. I recommend hiring an impact wrench for the day as its so much easier and safer. The bolt is 21mm. Get a person to put the car into a gear and get them to apply the brakes. This will stop the engine moving when you use the wrench. With the wrench in place, get that sucker off. It may take a while, it may take a second, but bolt will eventually undo. This now allows you to remove the pulley. Before removing the pulley, make sure that the timing marks are still aligned. I found the pulley a little difficult to remove but if you put your hands behind it at either side and sort of wiggle it off it will eventually come off for you.
15. From here we need to remove the water pump pulley. An easy way to do this once again requires a friend. Using a clamp, connect that to the centre part of the water pump pulley. Get your friend to hold this. Get underneath the car and by using a 10mm socket, remove the 4 bolts holding it in place. Now take the pulley off.
16. Now we remove the lower plastic timing belt cover. Similar to the top one, 3 10mm bolts this time. Its a little bit fiddly to take out, but it gets there.
17. This is just a safety step, it is not required. With a marker place a mark on both the timing belt and the cam sprocket, once again on the crank timing pulley and timing belt. This will just make sure that everything lines up when you go to reinstall the timing belt later on. And yes, the timing is very important.
18. Now finally down to business. We need to remove the cam sprocket. I found this easiest to remove with the timing belt still in place. The bolt on the sprocket marked in the picture below is 14mm. Obviously you only do this one cam at a time. With a holding a spanner in place where I circled on the cam, loosen the cam sprocket bolt. At this stage do not remove the belt or the sprocket just yet. Next loosen the other cam sprocket bolt following the same procedure. Now we can remove the bolts and the timing belt and cam sprockets.
19. Now for the take your time part, removing the cams. Loosen the cam bolts a few turns at a time in the order marked on the picture below. These are 10mm bolts. Be very careful that the cam doesnt apply too much pressure to one cam cap over the rest, so after the first few turns you can start to remove the bolts out of order to try and keep the cam straight. What I mean by that is if a bolt is loose, just leave that one be for a little while. You need to loosen the bolts that have a bit of pressure on them more. If you have set up the camshaft sprockets like I said earlier, number 3 cylinder (third from the cam sprocket) on the intake cam (closest the firewall) should be the one applying pressure via the valves. Number 2 cylinder (second from the cap sprocket) on the exhaust (closest the front of the car) should be the applying the pressure via the valves.
20. Once you have undone the bolts, I suggest placing them somewhere intact and in order (ie bolts are still in the cam cap). This will ensure you are placing the engine back together as best as close as possible to before.
21. Remove the cams. Take off and clean the oil seal (black plastic ring) from each cam. Once again, make sure you know which one is for the intake and exhaust cam.
Precautions
- Make sure the engine is cold (good idea to leave it sitting overnight)
- Give yourself a day to do the work
- Trust yourself. It is a relatively easy but very time consuming for the beginner and can become a little frustrating at times.
- This is just a guide. Do not blame me is you stuff up and your engine goes boom.
What you need
- Torque wrench
- Metric sockets (10mm, 12mm, 14mm, 17mm, 21mm)
- Impact wrench
- Engine oil
- Marker pen
- Friend
- Patience
- 1 Day to work on your car
1. Disconnect the negative battery terminal. This is just a safety step.
2. This step is just for those who have the plastic engine cover on their engine (me). Unbolt the nuts on your plastic cover. Youll need a 10mm socket for this. See picture below
3. Remove the ignition coils. Unclip the wires from it then youll once again need a 10mm socket to take off the coils. Naturally, also remove the spark leads at the same time. See picture below. I recommend leaving the spark leads attached to the coil so you are putting the car back together exactly the same as it was before. Also remove the spark plugs.
4. Unclip the wiring harness from the points in the picture below. There are actually two connectors at the bottom point and also a little zip-tie like thing to the right of it. Once that wiring harness is not connected to anything, put it out of the way on top of the intake manifold.
5. In the middle of the head cover there is a little pipe that needs to be pulled out. Once you have that out, your engine bay should look like the picture below.
6. Now we start to really get into business. Remove the bolts on the head cover in the order numbered in the picture below. Youll need a 10mm socket for this. Remove each bolt a few turns at a time. At point 7, remove the bolt you cant quite see in the picture. The one you can see (one top of the engine cover does nothing. Its only there for the spark leads.
7. Once you have all the bolts out. Remove the head cover. The below picture is what you should see.
8. Remove the top timing belt cover. I didnt take a picture of this, but there are 4 bolts you need to take out, 2 on each side. 10mm socket is required here. Once you have undone the bolts and have them out, just remove the plastic cover.
9. Remove the number 3 engine mount. Dont worry, the other 3 engine mounts are enough to hold the engine just fine just dont leave your car like this for months. The nuts on the engine are 17mm and the nuts and bolts on the car are 14mm. See picture below. The circle with only pipes underneath it there is a bolt under the pipes, you just cant see it from the angle I took the picture at.
10. Now the pain in the arse jobs begin. You need to remove the 2 drive belts. The outer one does the power steering oil pump and the air conditioning compressor. You remove this one first. In the below picture you loosen the no 1 bolt out about 5mm. That is a 12mm bolt. Next there are two bolts you need to loosen hidden under number 2. They are both 10mm bolts. If you are looking from this direction, you loosen 1 bolt on your right, 1 bolt right in front of you. These bolts are used for adjusting the tension of the drive belt. Once you have loosened these bolts enough, the drive belt should be able to come off.
11. The inner belt is the alternator and water pump drive belt. Its too cluttered down there so I didnt take a picture, but its pretty much the same, but upside down as the power steering bolts. If you can imagine the above picture upside down, the places of the bolts are in the same place. And to make your life much easier to get to the adjusting bolts, now is a good time to put the car up on jacks, thats what I did.
12. While you have your car up on jacks, turn the steering all the way to the right. That just allows easier access to the crankshaft pulley for later and allows you to take off the underneath plastic cover. There are 5 bolts I think, all 10mm, and 1 clip to the left of the driveshaft as you look at it from the side of the car.
13. In preparation for the next step, rotate the crank (I just used a socket and bar) so that the engine is a top dead centre. You may need a friend to help you align this otherwise youll be moving it 2mm then jumping up and checking the mark and so on. If you look down on top of the engine where the engine mount was, you can see the crankshaft pulley. On the engine side of the pulley youll see a little plastic marking thing showing out of it. It will have a 10 and a T plus a lot of straight up and down lines. This is the timing marks. To find top dead centre you rotate the crank around (clockwise) so that the yellow mark on the crank pulley is in line with the T. Once that is in line, check the cam pulleys. There is a mark on the intake cam sprocket, I, and this needs to be pointing towards the E mark on the exhaust cam sprocket. If they are not, rotate the crank pulley a further 360 degrees.
14. Next we need to remove the crankshaft pulley. The crankshaft pulley is right at the bottom of the engine and you can see the big bolt connecting it to the crank from the side of the car. I recommend hiring an impact wrench for the day as its so much easier and safer. The bolt is 21mm. Get a person to put the car into a gear and get them to apply the brakes. This will stop the engine moving when you use the wrench. With the wrench in place, get that sucker off. It may take a while, it may take a second, but bolt will eventually undo. This now allows you to remove the pulley. Before removing the pulley, make sure that the timing marks are still aligned. I found the pulley a little difficult to remove but if you put your hands behind it at either side and sort of wiggle it off it will eventually come off for you.
15. From here we need to remove the water pump pulley. An easy way to do this once again requires a friend. Using a clamp, connect that to the centre part of the water pump pulley. Get your friend to hold this. Get underneath the car and by using a 10mm socket, remove the 4 bolts holding it in place. Now take the pulley off.
16. Now we remove the lower plastic timing belt cover. Similar to the top one, 3 10mm bolts this time. Its a little bit fiddly to take out, but it gets there.
17. This is just a safety step, it is not required. With a marker place a mark on both the timing belt and the cam sprocket, once again on the crank timing pulley and timing belt. This will just make sure that everything lines up when you go to reinstall the timing belt later on. And yes, the timing is very important.
18. Now finally down to business. We need to remove the cam sprocket. I found this easiest to remove with the timing belt still in place. The bolt on the sprocket marked in the picture below is 14mm. Obviously you only do this one cam at a time. With a holding a spanner in place where I circled on the cam, loosen the cam sprocket bolt. At this stage do not remove the belt or the sprocket just yet. Next loosen the other cam sprocket bolt following the same procedure. Now we can remove the bolts and the timing belt and cam sprockets.
19. Now for the take your time part, removing the cams. Loosen the cam bolts a few turns at a time in the order marked on the picture below. These are 10mm bolts. Be very careful that the cam doesnt apply too much pressure to one cam cap over the rest, so after the first few turns you can start to remove the bolts out of order to try and keep the cam straight. What I mean by that is if a bolt is loose, just leave that one be for a little while. You need to loosen the bolts that have a bit of pressure on them more. If you have set up the camshaft sprockets like I said earlier, number 3 cylinder (third from the cam sprocket) on the intake cam (closest the firewall) should be the one applying pressure via the valves. Number 2 cylinder (second from the cap sprocket) on the exhaust (closest the front of the car) should be the applying the pressure via the valves.
20. Once you have undone the bolts, I suggest placing them somewhere intact and in order (ie bolts are still in the cam cap). This will ensure you are placing the engine back together as best as close as possible to before.
21. Remove the cams. Take off and clean the oil seal (black plastic ring) from each cam. Once again, make sure you know which one is for the intake and exhaust cam.