New to the Lexus brand. Just got a 98 ES300 and has an oil leak. Tracked it down to the rear cam seal; so going to do a timing belt, idler pulleys, cam and crank seals job. I'm to the point of trying to remove the timing gear sprokets. I made up a holder out of angle iron with 2 3/8" bolts that stick into the recesses of the timing gear. I've used a breaker bar and the 17mm bolt does not want to loosen. Am I correct in assuming that it is a right hand thread?? Is there another trick to holding the cam without removing the cam cover and holding it that way. Is there a Locktite compound on the threads? Any help would be appreciated. Didn't want to pull the cam covers off because they are not leaking now and it seems like that would be a lot of torqe on the cam to hold it in the center by the flats. TIA

Greg

 

Welcome to CL!

This sounds to me like a hard technical maintenance question for the timing belt area in your car. We have a master certified Lexus technician who moderates the Maintenance sub-forum in CL, so I'm going to move your thread over there, and hopefully your question(s) will be answered promptly. You can also try to use the search engine in the Maintenance forum while you are waiting for an answer.

 

Welcome CL.

I rest the cam pulley holder against some hard surface to stop it from spinning and use a long breaker bar with both hands to loose it up. Yes it's a right handed thread,but it really tight.