CAS broken.. not CW or timing

[ddavisaf]

Rebuilding the car, and I've stripped it down to a bare block in the vehicle right now. It's a 1996. I take the head in to get serviced and the guy calls me today and tells me my CAS is thrashed. Says my valves and guides are perfect. Very very dirty however. So first thing's first I go and check the crank. No problems there. It's measurements are within spec and there is no movement on the crank pully itself.
Also, when the vehicle was taken apart the timing belt was fully intact.
What else would mangle a CAS this way? It is a 96, so the CAS is under the intake cam gear.

 

[JDNSBR]

Rebuilding the car, and I've stripped it down to a bare block in the vehicle right now. It's a 1996. I take the head in to get serviced and the guy calls me today and tells me my CAS is thrashed. Says my valves and guides are perfect. Very very dirty however. So first thing's first I go and check the crank. No problems there. It's measurements are within spec and there is no movement on the crank pully itself.
Also, when the vehicle was taken apart the timing belt was fully intact.
What else would mangle a CAS this way? It is a 96, so the CAS is under the intake cam gear.

When you say trashed, what do you mean? Beat up or just doesn't work? This is basically a magnetic pick up. They can just go bad over time. Or wires could have been accidently tugged on to become loose or somehow grounded out. These are couple of possibilites. Hope this helps.

 

[ddavisaf]

It was making contact with the inner lip of the cam gear. It looks like it's been bent backwards.

 

[JDNSBR]

It was making contact with the inner lip of the cam gear. It looks like it's been bent backwards.

Hmm...this seems very odd. How many times has this been on and off? Is it possible it bent when the shop was taking it off? Do you have any pictures?

 

[wolf20043]

It was making contact with the inner lip of the cam gear. It looks like it's been bent backwards.

Would it be possible that either the cam gear or the plate behind it got bent somehow? I cant think of anything close to it that would hit it besides those two.
Mike

 

[Doug99RS]

When you say CAS on a 96 I'm thinking that it's located on the crankpulley, intake side. If this is one in the same then there's a good chance that you will find the target plate for the crank sensor to be slightly bent. The first picture is the pulley removed from the engine. There's the gear part, the target plate and the retaining ring on the backside. The retaining ring is a press-fit on to two pins protruding from the backside of the gear. If the holes in the target plate are elongated even a few thousandths of an inch then you will have intermittant loss of cam or crank sensor fault codes. If the plate has excessive run-out (bent) then it will hit the crank sensor each time one of the targets swipes by it.

If this is the same sensor, in the same location as you are referring to then you probably have a bent target plate. This was the cause of a problem for a friend of mine in Charlotte who I helped diagnose the problem with it getting fixed with a new plate and sensor. These pictures actually came from a Mitsu v6 engine found in the 03 stratus coupe, it had the elongated holes allowing for slight movement (clockwise/counterclockwise) which let to the cam/crank codes.

Hope this sheds some light on the subject for you.
Doug

 

[ddavisaf]

I was thinking along the lines of a bent fin also. The machinest that was doing the head job said that it did not look bent to him, however he didn't pay to much attention to it at that time. I pick the head up in the morning so I'll have him run the gear through a roller unless I decide to change it over to the other style CAS.

It does though that I have some shavings I missed upon my initial inspection of my oil pan. (I thought I drained it... I was wrong.) Seems a balance shaft eliminator is now in order also.

 

[ddavisaf]

Hmm...this seems very odd. How many times has this been on and off? Is it possible it bent when the shop was taking it off? Do you have any pictures?

I bought the car with a known knocking, so I'm not sure of it's past maintenance. I actually just got some parts from SBR on Thursday.

I don't think the shop bent it, it seems from the markings on the fin of the cam gear that it's been a problem for a little while now. I'll have better pictures once I pick up the head tomorrow.

 

[Doug99RS]

So what fixed it cupcake?

 

[christiane]

If the Cam Angle Sensor (CAS) is like the one on the 95' it is very easily to damage it if you try to remove the CAS prior to removing the cam gear. I broke mine when I was doing my rebuild. Did the 'bearing' surface of the head look to be in satisfactory condition? Also, you will want to check the cam gear to make sure it is not bent.