camshaft timing

First post. I have been reading posts here and it looks like a group of people with a lot of knowledge on diesel engines. I have none.
My question is about camshaft timing. The camshaft does not have a key in it or any markings. Is this common?

I have to be honest, the engine is a John Deere. Model 5030, a 5 cylinder newer engine I think. My son, who bought it because the ski steer was cheap and not running. He wants to learn about diesel engines, as a hobby. It has 3 bent push rods. He found the camshaft gear was spinning free on the camshaft, the bolt had become loose.
We have the manual and proper timing requires tools we don't have.

Is there anyway we can time the camshaft and get it close enough to get it running?

My apologies, i know this is not the right place to ask this. But i am having great difficulty finding people who have knowledge on this type of engines. Any insight or pointing me to where I should ask this would be appreciate.

Brian

[quote="shortrun"]First post. I have been reading posts here and it looks like a group of people with a lot of knowledge on diesel engines. I have none.
My question is about camshaft timing. The camshaft does not have a key in it or any markings. Is this common?

I have to be honest, the engine is a John Deere. Model 5030, a 5 cylinder newer engine I think. My son, who bought it because the ski steer was cheap and not running. He wants to learn about diesel engines, as a hobby. It has 3 bent push rods. He found the camshaft gear was spinning free on the camshaft, the bolt had become loose.
We have the manual and proper timing requires tools we don't have.

Is there anyway we can time the camshaft and get it close enough to get it running?

My apologies, i know this is not the right place to ask this. But i am having great difficulty finding people who have knowledge on this type of engines. Any insight or pointing me to where I should ask this would be appreciate.

Brian[/quote]

It is essential to get the timing right if you want it to work correctly. Suggest a call to the dealer to see if they would set the timing with their tool. Cheap insurance.

Depends if the injection pump(s?) are driven by the cam. If you just wanted to give it a shot, I think you could get #1 piston at TDC and then rotate the camshaft until you get the exhaust valve closing/closed and intake valve for that cylinder opening before locking it down. Then rotate engine one turn in normal direction of rotation and check for normal fuel injection timing.

This is not going to be a reliable method of timing the fuel injection system to the precision required, if it drives from the camshaft, but I think after doing it this way, you could pull the injectors and do a compression test or cylinder leakage test using compressed air and discover any bent valves which would require much more work to fix.

Turning the camshaft to retime it to the crankshaft probably will require loosening the valve adjusters to avoid bending more pushrods. Older JD engines usually had some method of setting the engine on TDC for #1 piston. One of the most common was to remove a plug on the flywheel end of the engine and inserting a timing pin (bolt would do in a pinch) through the hole into a hole in the flywheel. Other engines had a window with a pointer and the flywheel is marked in degrees BTDC up to TDC for #1.

Thanks all.
We really need to just get it close so the described method sounds like a great first step.
This engine has 5 injection pumps driven directly off the camshaft. So the cam has 3 lobes for each cylinder, 1 for exhaust, then the injection pump, then the intake valve. The 2 valves we can see the hydraulic lifters. All the push rods are out right now. Hopefully we can see the injector cam lobe from the bottom, will have to lift the motor to check that.
If we can get close we can start looking for bent valve stems and the other bad things that happen when the cam stops rotating on a running engine.

We removed the glow plugs and put our compression gauge there then turned the engine over by hand. All the cylinders have compression. So really want to see what happens when the valves are moving and using the starter motor.

I have a feeling this is not a easy motor to work on, especially for new to diesel. Great learning experience.




PowerTech 4024 2.4L & 5030 3.0L Diesel Engines