my 99' gs300 with a 130k miles now need a new cam gear. the toyota dealer quote me 5 hours job for this. thats a lot of money for this. does this ever happen to any of other members? whats the worse can be if you dont change it? thank you

 

You will leak out oil slowly in the beginning and it probably won't affect too much. After a while if the oil leak gets bad, the oil may splash all over the timing belt and degrade the belt. Basically it's not a good thing lol.

 

I took mine apart and sealed it with black Permatex. Cost me $10.

 

wow how do you do that? does the valve cover gasket has to come off to change the cam gear?

 

Disclaimer: This is only a description of what I did to my car.
I will not be responsible for you following what I did and blowing up your ride.

Follow this thread, I pretty much did what he did to seal up the pulley.
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...seal-pics.html
I was doing a timing belt job so I had already lined up all the timing marks per the factory service manual. Before I took the pulley apart I had also marked both halves of the pulley so I know how to bolt them back together exactly as before dis-assembly.

1. I took off the upper most timing belt cover.
2. Got the two hex bolts (14mm and 10mm) off since I was planning on replacing the cam seals anyway.
3. Took off the 5 bolts that hold the pulley together, and pulled the front half of the pulley off while being careful not to let the parts inside fall out.
4. I then cleaned up the mating surfaces with brake cleaner and applied the black Permatex.
5. I hand-tight the the front half of the pulley back on to the back half and let it sit for 30 min then torqued down the 5 bolts to 15ft/lb in a star pattern.
Note: This is just a random torque value that I used based on the size of the bolt. I will not be responsible for any damages if you follow this and strip/snaps those bolts. Use good judgment when torquing these down since they are tiny little weak bolts. If I were to do it over again I would've used an in/lb torque wrench and torque them down in stages.

You might as well check and replace your cam seals at this point. When I did this job, I was in the middle of doing my timing belt and had no intention of taking off the pulley, but then I discovered that both of the seals were leaking.

If you decide to replace the cam seals then the valve covers will have to come off so you might as well change your valve cover gaskets too .

Edit: If you want to take the cam gears completely off of the cams then you will have to take the valve covers off and use a big crescent wrench to keep the cam stationary. This is to prevent you from spinning the cams and throwing off timing.

 

I did this job a while back with a new gear, next time I will use Permatex Ultra grey...
He is my thread.
New valve cover gasket, cam seals and VVT-i pulley

 

Hi Frank, I just wanted to say thank you for posting up that thread a while back since it helped me fix my VVTi pulley. I would've posted your thread in respond to the OP but wasn't able to find it.

 

wewwh, i think i might get rid of this car.. it has so many problems on it now vvti oil leak, steering rack ( due to steering wont return to center), struts mounts making noise..give me advice of what to do now. thanks

 

For those that complain about seals leaking and using the permatex stuff, don't be cheap and half *** it. Use the toyota black FIPG. That stuff is amazing and will last a very very long time if used properly.

 

Its not about being cheap, it was the only thing I could get my hands on.