Hey can anyone tell me what size the E Series cam gear bolt is? (ie. thread size and length)

I want to fit a new one to a car I'm going to be working on soon but rather than go to Ford I figure I might just grab a decent hi tensile one the right size from Blackwoods - but I don't have an old one as a sample. If I have to I'll take the removed one as a sample when I do the job next week but I'd rather have everything ready to go and not have to go running about in the middle of it.

I've had one of these break many years ago (one broken rocker, several bent valves...) so am a bit twitchy about them - and never been happy that the Ford one looks like something from the fencing supplies section of Bunnings...

I could tell you tomorrow if no one answers by then, but just out of curiosity...

The gear is still keyed onto the shaft IIRC so did it slip the cam gear clean off the camshaft and run around the timing/rocker cover? That's pretty impressive.

Thanks low_ryda - that would be MUCH appreciated

As far as what happened with the bolt that I mentioned, that happened in 1999 to my 93 Futura - and it snapped completely just under the head. I was accelerating out of a roundabout and there was a loud "BANG" - immediately followed by "ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz" noise as I coasted to a stop - and when I tried to start the engine it just whirred over with obviously no compression.

In 1997 I'd had an ED XR6 cam fitted - keep in mind that back then aftermarket cams were very scarce - if available at all? (I was certainly not aware of any - but at that time I wasn't on the net yet).

I had that cam fitted by one mechanic - and then a few months later had 3.45 diff gears and a "Fuelchip" fitted by a different mechanic (I ditched the Fuelchip after a few months - all it did was chew fuel). The car went fine for a couple of years but then started leaking coolant from the head gasket on the exhaust side - so I was up for head gasket change.

I did that gasket change myself - had no dramas and all seemed to go well - INCLUDING fitting the cam gear bolt - which like the rest of the job I did strictly in accordance with the Workshop manual - with bolt and cam threads scrupulously clean and the proper blue thread locking compound used and correct torque applied etc.

So about 3 months after that the bolt broke...

All I can say is I did note at the time I did the head that the bolt was REALLY hard to undo - AND I also noted that altho it torqued up ok it did feel a little wierd (kind of springy) - but to my eternal shame I didn't think anything of it at the time (it's a coa rser thread than anything I usually work with so I more or less shrugged it off as being down to that). As soon as I pulled the cover and saw what had happened the penny dropped and I realised what both those things probably very clearly pointed to at the time (facepalm)...

Even tho I think that case was clearly due to the bolt having been overtorqued and fractured before I worked on it, I still can't help being real twitchy about them - especially when as I say - they look like something from Bunnings (I really have a hard time getting round the fact there's no shank)

yeah thats understandable, I joined the game a little later and started out my time adding a crow billet with vernier to my 89 ea & remember the job like it was the only one I've done for some reason lol.

I do believe it's a standard metric medium thread around 14 but will have to confirm for you. I used the second hand bolt and torqued that, along with the 6mm 15nm vernier bolts with no torque wrench. I barely ever use a torque wrench, just focus on equal torquing of sequential bolt assemblies (normally using flex bars). I continued dialing the cam in by feel and never used a torque wrench, I could still go out and fire that motor up now and that was about 8 years ago. Guess it's luck of the draw, I've also reused TTY bolts in the head and flywheel with no failures..... yet. Not that I condone that sort of thing, if seeking any sort of long term reliability that sort of thing is just ridiculous but it saved me a few dollars along the way and I got away with it.

I'm pretty much assuming that bolt had been overtightened - but then again, even as tight as I found it I have wondered if that was actually anywhere near enough to have damaged it - to be honest my own experience and sense says not. Perhaps that particular bolt was flawed and destined to give way eventually no matter what.

In fact in that Futura I reused the head bolts that first time doing the head gasket - and then when the cam bolt failed I was so p issed off with it all I just handed it over to the local "workshop of a national company" to fix (much to my regret when the bill was in) - and I'm pretty sure I didn't see any listing for head bolts as part of that bill - and then about a year after that I fitted a new EFXR6 head myself and still used the same bolts.

As a matter of interest / scary story - about 2 months after that "workshop of a national company" did the repair, I popped the cover off just to have a look and nearly died when sitting right on top of the cam gear was the chain's joining link clearly about THAT close to letting go - the C clip had come off and the pins were flush with the edge of the plate on that side (backside plate sitting out was what caught my eye) - just an Nth away from allowing it to come adrift. I suspect the C clip had been fitted back to front so got flicked off by contact with a guide. The sheer luck of deciding to pull the cover on a whim and having that link in THAT position is incredible!!!

It was also a damned good thing I decided to replace the head when I did - ie. only a year after that "workshop of a national company" had put it together - because undoing the head bolts I could feel they were ALL too soft - as well as all being different - and the head came away really easily. Tho it had only been on for a year my feeling was that it was very close to letting go in a big way - and how it wasn't already leaking was amazing.

With a conventional composite style gasket sprayed with Hylomar I used those same head bolts again and just torqued em up to the 120Nm JMM were recommending by then - that would have been maybe 2001 sometime. It never had any issues right thru to the next time I had that head off - which was when I retired the car in 2010 (rust broke out badly in the body) - and boy did I have a mongrel of a time getting that head off once the bolts were out!! The gasket stayed totally bonded to both the block and the head - and ended up splitting within itself to allow the head to come away - there wasn't a square mm of bare metal on either deck...

Could've been a faulty bolt, or perhaps just under-over tight and worked it's way to yield. Can ponder forever bout things like that but at the end of the day, shyte happens hehe. Last time I replaced the cam gear rack in the AUII I snapped one of the bolts before it torqued up... and it's the newest ford I've done

Good and bad news for you greenmachine, I noticed out of all 3 cylinder heads I have in storage the cam sprockets and bolts have been removed and not replaced Although I can confirm that the bolt is an M10, same pitch as the exhaust bolts which I believe is 1.5mm (took a bolt from exhaust and screwed into cam) The depth into the cam is 28mm. From memory the cam sits almost flush with the sprocket when installed so perhaps a 30mm length with 5mm washer. That was measured off a 91DA.

Close call with the chain clip eh, would've been more than a few bent valves in that if it was humming when it let go I would think. That's why as much as I hate doing things myself, I'm fairly over other people touching my stuff to, at least I've never done anything that incompetent. Plenty of stupid things sure, but nothing unsafe or that would cause catastrophe.

Cool - thanks for that - I'll be able to hit up Blackwoods for likely options with that info.

I'm pretty much the same about doing my own work - in recent times I've even taken to doing my own wheel alignment (surprise surprise I now have car that drives and handles nice and bu gger me if the tyres aren't wearing evenly too!) - just a pity I dan't have the gear to do exhaust fabrication

pitty your not closer you could do my alignments and I could do your exhausts I used to get good alignments but now they're just crap, and the last time I went to my normal place there was new guys working there and I heard my XR rev limiting up the road in 2nd after I asked them specifically not to test drive it as I don't believe it's needed with computer alignments. Haven't found a good one since, also haven't been able to get rid of the 2k rpm rattle... go figure.
I've tried my own but only on low cars with too much fairing to gain good measurements around the diameter. Now I just slow down and buy cheap tyres again, it's only a workhorse. Save the good rubber for the bike.

Happy to assist.