richard

I recently had to change the front cover on one of the 6 wheel dumps. Had an oil leak which was found to be a crack in the aluminum cover that the injection pump, air compressor bolts to.
As some of you know, you cannot remove this gear housing without either removing the cam gear or removing the camshaft with the gear still attatched to it.
When you remove the camshaft from the engine, you need to somehow hold the tappets in the up position so the cam lobes will slide past them. After a bunch of research I figured I would use the dowel method that is talked about. I have heard many people have some trouble doing this because if you use the 3/8 dowel like is always recommended they don"t fit.
Here is the secret that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere and I feel someone needs to say it. When you think of wood dowels, you will always assume you need a round one.
Not in this case.
THE DOWELS NEED TO BE SQUARE
insert the square dowel into the push tube, you will feel the outside corners of the dowel grip into the round hollow of the tappets.
Hold the tappets up as far as you can in the bore with a pair of vise grips or some sort of clamp.
Remove camshaft.
Hope this saves someone a bunch of head scratching or searching
Richard

jtamulonis

you need 1/2" round dowels (not 3/8") and grind a SMALL champher (1/16") on the end and drive `em in to the lifter. after you`ve got all 12 dowels in the lifters you pull up 2 at a time and use rubber bands to hold them together. done a few this way and never had a problem.

richard

Next time I'll try that, if you measure a 3/8 square dowel, it's 1/2 across the corners. Same idea, different approach.