Camshaft cover bolts, a few short?

[beewstew]

Working to finish a head gasket replacement on a 2004 Volvo XC70 with a 2.5.

I forgot to fill all of the valve spring spaces (tappets?) with oil before putting the top camshaft cover on. Is that a make or break part of reassembly?

per the instructions I put the valve cover on with the anaerobic sealant and the o-rings all that stuff. After bolting everything down I find that I'm one or maybe four bolts short from the ice cream pail that I put all the bolts in when I took it apart a few weeks ago.

in the picture below

Is there a bolt where it shouldn't be? there are three open bolt holes next to the firewall that seem like they should take a 10 mm bolt but then the pattern is not symmetric with the front of the engine.

Resolved: M7 1.0 tap cleaned the threads and I put in 3 new 8.8 hardware store bolts.

[erikv11]

Those three are part of the standard cam cover set, the bolt pattern is asymmetrical.

Maybe this will help: https://www.elevatecars.com/product/ele ... nding-set/

[beewstew]

@erikv11 thanks!

Went to the hardware store. M7 x 35mm x 1.0 pitch bolts are available (US big box), but the head is bigger - 11mm driver, not 10mm. The three bolt holes flagged below are very dirty (like there hasn't been a bolt there for 50k miles) and the thread pitch of those 3 holes doesn't seem to be M7x1.0 (I tried and the bolts wouldn't grab). Could there have been an alternative bolt pattern for turbo vs non-turbo camshaft/valve covers? Car is a 2004 xc70 w/ 2.5T engine.

[erikv11]

Went out to my 07 XC70 (same engine) that needs the head pulled. I pulled one bolt you have installed and one you don't, and compared them. Check the pic - the bolts are the same. To confirm I swapped them from one position to the other.

Maybe the recently(?) unused holes need a thread chaser. But also, seems there was no issue without bolts in them, right?

07 XC70 (turbo engine)

[beewstew]

@erikv11 thanks for checking. Yep, an M7 tap did the job.