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Has anyone changed the o-ring out before? Do I need to remove the up-pipe and turbo to wiggle the plate out?

My car is apart in the drive-way, so some help sooner would be better.

Thanks.

Well, I answered my own question a few minutes ago, you need to remove the up-pipe to pull the plate off of the cylinder head to replace the o-ring.

I am getting ready to do that cam seal replacement so it would be nice if you could post your lessons learned from that task. Yeah, it is buried by the turbo and up pipe. N/A's are right out in the open though.

Edit: I changed to title to reflect more of a how too.

Here is what needs to be done to replace the rear cam o-ring.

Disconnect turbo intake and disharge plumbing from the air box, and throttle body, respectively. I removed the air box, and its bracket.

Remove chimney from turbo brackets,(seven 10mm bolts )

Disconnect the oil feed line at both ends, then the lower coolant line from the turbo, you can leave the other end attached to the cam support plate. Be sure you have a drain pan ready to catch the coolant.

Seperate the down pipe from the turbo, no need to totally remove it, just let it sit there.

Undo the bolts that secure the turbo to the up-pipe. With the upper coolant line disconnected, remove the turbo.

Remove the up-pipe exhaust bolts under the motor. Then unbolt the bracket that holds the upper part of the up-pipe to the motor. This bracket has only two bolts securing it, however the bolt screwed into the side of the block is a pain to get out without a 14mm ratchet wrench.

Remove up-pipe and its bracket.

OK, now the rear of the cylinder head is accessible.

There are four bolts holding the cam shaft support on, where to the o-ring is located, two 12mm, and two 10mm. Pull them out and remove cam support.

The old o-ring will look like a beveled piece of hard plastic, well mine did anyways.

Pull the old o-ring off, and clean the support if nessesary, most likely greasy from the oil leak, the reason you are in here in the first place.

Lubricate the support and put the new o-ring on. Gently re-install the cam shaft support and torque the bolts down. 12mm bolts, 12 ft-lb, 10 mm bolts, 7 ft-lb.

The rest is just disassemly reversed, the eaiest way though, that I found to install the up-pipe bracket bolt to the side of the block, is to pull the short piece of hose off of the turbo oil drain.

With the piece of hose removed, it gives you alittlebit more room to get the bolt started with your fingers.

By doing te job as stated above it was fairly easy and straight forward, and it was nice having the extra room to work with.

I hope this helps in taking this job on for yourself.

Two of those bolts for the cam seal have small o-rings on the inboard side. Did you replace them also? The rest of the job is about what I had envisioned. Someone else said they take the up pipe out with the turbo. Can you see an advantage to doing that? I have ordered my parts from subarugenuineparts.com, but it will ba a couple of weeks before I do the work.

kleinkid wrote:Two of those bolts for the cam seal have small o-rings on the inboard side.

The bolt holes dont actually have the o-rings, the o-rings are for the oil, and coolant passages. I did not replace them because they looked to be in good shape, but if you are in there, you might aswell.

kleinkid wrote:Someone else said they take the up pipe out with the turbo. Can you see an advantage to doing that?

It would next to impossible to remove the bolt for the up-pipe bracket that is bolted to the side of the block, with the turbo still attached.

I did order the little o-rings also. From the exploded view it was hard for me to see clearly what those o-rings were doing. I will have them, so will replace the old ones. I'll have new gaskets for any of the exhaust joints that need to come apart also. Thanks.

I replaced the cam seal, and the two little O rings for the bolts for the camshaft support as well. Did remove the turbo , didnt remove the uppipe. Engine was out of car. the two o-rings were a hard one to get, used a long needle nose plier to get them in place, around the turbo piping. thsoe two O rings looked good, but were as hard as glass and brittle, they shattered..