fastduck

Attempted to torque the last WP bolt which passes through the lower cam cover has only resulted in trying to crush the plastic spacer cast into the cover. It doesn't feel right so I stopped trying to reach 7 lb-ft. Even cleaned off all the Optimoly and re-tried.
If the threads were toast the bolt would "spin" like it does, but not crush the spacer, no?
I'd rather dremel off the plastic and replace with the metal spacer used on earlier models, but I don't think that would solve what's happening?

John
'88S4

Bilal928S4

Is the cover seated properly? On my cars the bolt goes through the cover, but the cover sits flush with the water pump housing.

borland

Are you sure your torque wrench was calibrated in the range your trying to achieve? You'd typically need a torque wrench with a range in in-lbs for 7 ft-lbs (84 in-lbs) range.

Why are you using Optimoly on the water pump bolts? None is required if you install the bolts correctly.

It's good practice to replace all pump bolts with new bolts and washers, as the old bolts will likey be corroded. The threaded holes should also be cleaned to remove any wear and corrosion particles; which can be done with cotton q-tips and solvent until they can be removed clean).

fastduck

-Optimoly (anti-seize) is recommended (Greg Brown and a bunch others) or PTFE paste (Merlin). Yes, cleaned blind holes with a chaser (not tap), solvent, nylon bore brushes. Bolts are new. Torque wrench is a 5 - 50 ft.-lb. and worked fine on the other bolts for 7 ft.lbs.
There are three bolts attaching the cover, this is the 70 mm long one, lower on the right side.

borland

Most torque wrench manufacturer's provide accuracy as a percent of full scale. Typically, you'll see something like this claim... "plus or minus 5% at 20% of maximum scale".

So as an example, for a 50 ft-lb torque wrench with similar claimed accuracy, at 20% full scale (10 ft-lbs), the accuracy would be plus or minus 0.5 ft-lbs. At less than 20% full scale or at 7.5 ft-lbs setting, you wouldn't expect better than plus or minus 0.5 ft-lbs (i.e., accuracy between 7 and 8 ft-lbs at 7.5 ft-lbs setting).

fastduck

Yep, I'm seeing that about torque wrenches, and I should know better. I'm also puzzled that the PET shows a 44.5 mm spacer for ALL years to fit between the cover and the water pump. I wonder if it could have fallen out of my cover and the plastic tube in the cover was never meant to deal with the compression?
I have one other suspicion but that will wait . . .

Leon Speed

By plastic spacer you mean the tube the bolt runs through? I don't follow how can you crush it, it sits on the water pump and it has a metal insert. Then there's the metal spacer on the 70 mm bolt.

Ed Scherer

It's a long shot... but you haven't installed a PKns'r and chosen to leave off the tensioner pivot arm bolt and related bracket on the water pump, have you?

If so, see the second paragraph (not including the quoted stuff) of post #147 in an old thread "Cam timing inconsistant with each revolution" that, among other things, got into some PKns'r installation issues. One of the issues was related to refastening the center cover if you leave off one of the (originally thought to be unneeded) water pump parts.

fastduck

Ok you both, Aryan and Ed, just hit on what's going on. There IS NOT an insert in my cover, only the plastic hole with built-in plastic tube. It takes the load. Metal spacer must have disappeared at the last TB, won't mention the shop. AND YES, I removed the waterpump pully bracket to thread the belt, left the shaft but not bracket . . .
Excellent.

John