Puck question...
 

On the head where the cam hits the pucks... When you dissasemble the head does it matter what sequence the pucks go back in? I heard they are diffrent sizes and I didnt label them. I thought they were all the same. What should I do?

Your not totaly screwed but it will take some time.
Assuming you don't have the proper tools to do the job with the cams on you will have to temp install the cams after you put the shims back in. You can either do it one at a time or put them all in and see which ones are close and then leave those alone and work with the ones that are too close or the gaps are too much.
Check the adjustment one at a time till you get them all within specs, only problem is that if you didn't check the clearences before you took it apart then you won't even have a baseline to go with.
A good idea is to go junkyard hunting if your a cheapskate like me and grab all the shims from a supra there so you have more to play.
The proper way is to check the clearence with a feeler guage, remove the shim by using a special tool to compress the bucket and then take out the shim , measure the thickness of the shim with a micrometer and do a mathematical formula to determine the size of the shim that needs to go back in.
I bought the tools several years ago to check mine, followed the instructions in thr TSRM and when I put the new shims in they ended up being to close. Guess I suck at math.

"What should I do?"


Put the wrenches down and call a professional before you fubar the motor.

But if you're hell bent the intake valve clearance (cold) is .15- .25mm (.006-.010 in.)
and the exhaust valve clearance (cold) is .20- .30mm (.008- .012 in.)

Have fun!

It is hard to mess up the valve train on the MKlll's. The valves are a non- interference type and won't hit each other nor the piston even if the timing belt breaks. At least that was one nice thing Toyota did for us to make up for the crappy job on the stock head gasket/bolts.

Like Foogoo said earlier, it does take patience, but I have done it several times. The main thing is to have enough shims of the proper thickness. There is no telling how the gap was before you removed them, but I think you can get a measurement by just putting them in and using a feeler guage. Just make sure you have a nice sheet of paper to write down the measurements for the gap on each puck and the thickness of the shim. I measured mine with a micrometer in thousandths and wrote them on the shim with a sharpee pen. Since you are going to measure them in thousandths for the gap you may as well measure the shim thickness that way too.

I took the cams out to do mine since I don't have the tool, but get the tool if you don't want to mess with the cam timing and cam retainer caps, which by the way have to go on in order like they are numbered on each cap. Intake and exhaust caps. If you get the gaps in the range mentioned you should be fine.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Russ

camshafts have to be removed to do the head gasket?

I took them out cause I had the head pressure tested and cleaned and surfaced.

ahhh !!................