Well, this is the way the story went

I bought the car with a thrown timing chain. The shop it was towed to told the previous owners that it needed a valve job because of the thrown chain. I bought it as is in that condition and towed it home.
I was fully expecting to do the head. When I got it all apart, I was really surprised that the valves all looked fine to the naked eye. Only the timing chain guide was broken. The chain was still intact. In retrospect, I could probably have just replaced the chain and been on my merry way. But,,,,, how was I really supposed to know. I would have at least had to do a chain to do a compression test, right?

Since I was into it that deep, I decided to take the head to the local machine shop that’s everyone praised up to me. I just wanted them to look at it. It was the day before New Years. I did not hear anything from them for 6 days (3 of them being New Years holiday weekend). I finally went there to see, and they had the dang thing apart and had done a valve job on it.without even calling me. And said they were waiting on me to bring them seals. Doh. Okay, I ran home and got the seals.

So the next day when I was paying, I noticed on the invoice it said R&R cams, $40. I asked about it, and he said if I had removed them it would have saved me $40.

Being naive, trusting, or just dumb, I just assumed they put everything to spec. Including torquing the cams. Then I found the VVT sprockets were reversed, hence I made this thread. If I hadn’t been so eager to get this thing together and just slowed down, I would have caught all of that. Teaches me to take it slow and easy.

I almost didnt catch this problem today. Honestly, I was getting ready to pull the head again. I just so happened to look at the shavings, and when I picked one up I noticed the intake cam move a little. The right 2 journels were finger tight. The exhaust cam wears good. Looks like they got it half together and got distracted

So yeah, that was long winded. I am just freaking happy I got this solved. ANd the car really runs super great too!

 

A long and winding road to a good final result.

 

They would have had to remove the camshafts to get to remove the valve seals which live under the valve springs and retainers and keepers, trust me it’s not a fun job without the right tool to compress the valve spring . $40.00 a good amount depending on shop rate is equivalent to 1/2 hour to R&R the camshafts, sadly they didn’t do it fully and correctly.

Keep it clean, drive it often!!