I am doing another 90K cam belt replacement. This is the second time I've done this but this time I replaced the water pump and pulleys as well. In reassembling I find the stick out of the front cam is 1/8" shorter than the rear cam. This prevents the cam pulley from seating against the face of the cam due to the backing plate which causes the back of the cam pulley to drag against the belt backing plate. What happened and how to I remove it?

 

You stated. replacing the pulleys ... do you mean actual pulleys or just the seal. Your issue can be the seal not fitted properly or the actual pulley being wrong [that is if you have replaced the pulley].
If by pulley, you meant idlers ,,, then reinvestigate the seating of the seals.

Salim

 

You are correct, I am just replacing the idlers. I haven't done anything with seals in the head and the seals on the back of the backing plates are still good. The backing plate sits tight to the head so that is not the problem. The problem is the cam juts out of the head seal 1/8" farther on the rear cam than the front one.

 

Disregard this thread, I just discovered that the pulleys are not installed the same way. The front pulley has the lip toward the engine while the rear pulley has the lip facing out. Don't know how I missed that.

 

If you are doing 180K miles service, do replace the cam seals.

Salim