I***8217;m not Sapote, but that sounds fine to me.

 

Thinking about it, I don't think it is even necessary to remove the bolt from the VANOS piston/splined shaft. Simply loosen the sprocket nuts, rotate the cam to align it properly, then re-tighten the nuts.

Regards,
Ray L.

 

I wonder if anyone can comment on this:

Sapotes' comments re: timing without the special tool contain one thing I found confusing/mis-leading:

"On the VANOS unit, make sure to push the IN piston completely in ***8211; the piston can be moved fairly easy. For the EX piston, make sure it***8217;s all the way out and can***8217;t be pushed in. The built in spring does not guarantee this during bolting it down, so get an appropriate length socket and use it as a spacer between the piston and the big cover HEX nut (?). Lightly tight down the hex nut, which lock the piston solid in the advance position. There you have it: the inexpensive VANOS timing depth gauge."

I believe his comments "make sure to push the IN piston completely in" and "For the EX piston, make sure it***8217;s all the way out" are using the term "in" to mean the piston is pushed fully FORWARD, into its cylinder in the VANOS, and towards the FRONT of the engine, and "out" to mean fully extened out of its cylinder in the VANOS, and towards the REAR of the engine.

This had me confused for a while, as I would normally interpret "in" to mean pushed INTO the engine, and out to mean pushed OUT away from the engine.

So, the EX piston has to be pushed as far towards the back of the engine as it will go (which is the direction its internal spring pushes it, and the IN piston has to be pulled as far towards the front of the engine as possible.

Regards,
Ray L.

 

There is an important lesson for all in my experience: DON'T let a total frickin' MORON work on your engine! When I rebuilt the head last year, I rebuilt the VANOS as well. My brain must have been on vacation that day, because I actually managed to assemble it with the big-a$$ spring in the INTAKE cylinder! Amazingly, the computer was still able to deal with this, though it clearly was not happy with the situation. That is what threw my timing off. I moved the spring, re-timed it, without using ANY special tools (and I now actually understand the whole - fundamentally very simple - process), and it seems happy now. I'll know for sure in a few days if the P0011/67 does not return.

Regards,
Ray L.

 

Glad to hear it is (hopefully) resolved. Thanks for the update.

 

Glad it worked out, I nearly did that myself. Your persistence paid off.


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The most useful thing I learned is how easy it is to set the timing with on special tools, once you understand the point of the whole over-complicated process. The only special "tool" I used was a 10-12" long straight-edge. If that sits perfectly flat against the two flats on the rear of the cams when the exhaust splined shaft is pushed all the way into the sprocket, and the intake splined shaft has 1mm of spline showing in front of the sprocket, the cam and sprockets are properly positioned and can be locked together by the 3 nuts on each sprocket. Before fitting the VANOS, make sure the exhaust VANOS piston is pushed all the way towards the rear of the engine (the spring does a good job of this), and push the intake VANOS piston all the way towards the front of the engine, then bolt up the VANOS. Finally, put in the two left-hand bolts that secure the pistons to the splined shafts, and your done! When you're done, spin the engine two turns of the crank, stopping on TDC, and use the straight-edge to re-confirm the timing. The whole thing took only a few minutes.

Regards,
Ray L.