Kaptain Holister wrote:Motorworks have them for £43 (AU$68 no VAT). They have a proper handle and the finish looks well made. A better option by far imo.
And so, after measuring the clearances and finding three shims that needed changing, I went and bought the tools from Motorworks. I was immediately suspicious as it is painted, and surely the rough casting of the cam and the pressure of the bucket would scrape the paint off in no time? But better to give them the benefit of the doubt, Motorworks know what they're doing.. Right?
No. No they do not.
The first two shims were easy enough to extract, measure, and put back in. All the paint (and red oxide primer) scraped off the inside and outside of the tool, but that was expected. What was
not expected was that the steel would be so incredibly soft that it got bitten hard by the buckets and the roughness of the cam, eventually getting chewed so much that it would not release itself from the cam! I had to press the bucket down with a screwdriver to get it out, and bent the special tool in the process. Check it:
I also had to keep filing it relatively smooth, as the buckets sliced the outside like butter and the cam roughened up the inside until the tool wouldn't slide around it any more. The small, well used hand file I was using also sliced through the tool without any bother, this steel is ridiculously soft.
I also bent it back into a straight enough shape without too much effort, just clamped the cam end in a vice and pulled on the handle. Yuck! It just about managed to remove three shims, replace the three shims, then remove them again and replace with new ones. But I don't think it could do another engine, this tool has had it. And of course there will still be little bits of it left behind in the engine, no way to clean it out properly without removing the cams..
Overall, decidedly unimpressed!