Rear Camshaft Seal Replacement.

Post by **lewismug** » 18 Feb 2008, 15:42

My car has been leaking oil for a while now and with the help of MIJ, I was finally able to find the source of the leak. It was my rear camshaft seal. It was kind of hard to find, because when it leaks, it drips oil in the same place as if the rear main seal has gone. Luckily, instead of $800.00 +, I was able to fix my leak for less than $10.00!

You will start by removing the top of the air box, along with the inlet hose to the throttle body. Be careful with the vacuum lines going into the side of the air box top. I broke one of mine and had to replace it. You will need a 10mm socket and a ratchet, a flat head screwdriver, a torx T-25 bit, and a pair of hemostats or very fine needle nose pliers.

The seal is located behind the Camshaft Position Sensor (CPS) circled in Yellow here.

To remove the CPS, you will need a Torx T-25 bit to remove the screws circled in yellow, and a 10mm socket to remove the two bolts circled in red. The top bolt circled in red is the one that holds the CPS in it's housing. Be gentle.

Now that the CPS and it's housing have been removed, you can see the oil which has been seeping past the seal circled in red. Next, you will need to remove the CPS trigger wheel which is circled in yellow. You will need a 10mm socket with a short extension in order to remove the one bolt in the center. The trigger wheel has a certain way that it is supposed to sit against the end of the camshaft. Pay particular attention to it's orientation and make sure you put it back exactly as it was before. A mark on the flat end with a marker and another on the engine as "alignment marks" will help tremendously.

The seal is circled in red. You can now clearly see the oil which has been seeping past. If you happen to have a Volvo extractor part #999 5919, great! If not, you will need something like hemostats, or a very fine pair of needlenose pliers to remove the seal.

Here you can see that my seal is out and has a hole in the side of it. I made the hole trying to extract it.

Now, all you need to do is make sure everything is clean and dry, especially the mating surface of the seal area. Slowly press in the new seal, but be careful not to push it in too far. It should be flush with the internal beveled edge. If the shaft is showing signs of wear, it can be pressed in an additional 2 mm. I used a little bit of permatex on the outside edge of my seal just to be sure it wouldn't leak. The CPS trigger wheel should be tightened to 17 Nm. All you need to do now is re-install everything in the reverse order. You can clean the CPS while it is out of the housing. I simply wiped mine with a clean paper towel. I hope this helps.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 18 Feb 2008, 16:39

Wow,

Where on earth did you come up with a 10 Valve? I didn't even know that they sold them in the US.

...Lee

Post by **lewismug** » 18 Feb 2008, 17:48

Ten, I thought it had 20.

Post by **MadeInJapan** » 18 Feb 2008, 18:19

Nice job! Glad you got it done. Yours is a bit different than mine (especially the CPS trigger wheel) and you even found the torque specs for it! I was lucky that I had this same leak last year so was able to give lewismug a suggestion as to where the leak might be and he basically took it from there.
I'm pinning this for future reference. Never know when someone might have a leak that looks like the RMS and get ripped by a dealer or otherwise greedy mechanic when it can be fixed fairly easily yourself.

Post by **Ozark Lee** » 18 Feb 2008, 19:21

Ten, I thought it had 20

.

From looking at it that is a 10V for sure. What is your VIN? More importantly, what is your engine number?

Aside from the single camshaft seal the clue is the spark plug cover.

If it is a 20 valve it says so!

...Lee

Post by **MadeInJapan** » 18 Feb 2008, 19:30

Lee, you might be right about the 10 valve but there is only one rear camshaft seal on all of these. The other side is a sealed unit. There are however 2 front camshaft seals. I guess they constructed it this way so they could get a reading off of the spinning part for the throttle position sensor.

Post by **lewismug** » 18 Feb 2008, 20:05

Vin: YV1LS55A9X2613510

Carfax says it's 20 valve. Not sure about why the spark plug cover doesn't say so.

Post by **MadeInJapan** » 18 Feb 2008, 20:18

When I put the VIN# in VADIS it gave me a B3254S engine with a DENSO management (ECU) system (as apposed to the Bosch ME7 ECU for the turbo models) for a non-aspirated (non-turbo), '99 S70 with 4 valves. Since this has 5 cylinders, the total valve number would be 20.

Post by **lewismug** » 18 Feb 2008, 21:50

When I picked my daughter from daycare today and pulled off, I hopped out to see if there were any spots of oil where my car had been sitting. (I checked before parking to be sure there weren't any already in that spot.) Anyway, when I checked after pulling out of the spot, there were some oil drops, but it looks as if they were coming from around the centerline of my car. Maybe where the dipstick tube plugs in. I'll pull it up on jack stands and look at my oil pan and the dipstick tube to try and see where it's coming from now. It's still clean under the CPS. I also cleaned my engine extremely well with engine de-greaser and got rid of any pooled oil, so I know it's not residue from the earlier leak.. Thanks a million for all of your help.

jks1259 · Post by **jks1259** » 22 Feb 2008, 08:16

I have a '95 850 turbo. This oil leak location is similar to one I have and I have been going through oil.

Do all 850s have one seal? It seems that there are distinctions between engines manufactured for the '95 model year. And some of the replies seem to indicate that there may be two seals to replace.

Second question, where did you get the replacment seal FCP Groton?

Thanks