Failed Rocker Arm & Camshaft Replacement

[jstockton]

Pretty clearly an oil supply problem with that cam.

What do you see that makes you say this?

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[jstockton]

For the stuck cap bolt.......I grinded a slot (like a flat head screw driver slot) into the top of the cap head. I used an electric hand drill with a tiny circular grinding bit...then I cut the slot. Then I used a big (wide enough to fit accross the cap head) flat head screw driver bit attached to a ratchet, then I had to push down hard with one hand on top of the ratchet over the bolt, and the other hand slowly turn the ratchet. beofre turning I also put some drops of WD40 at the seam of the bolt head and the cap face to try to get the WD40 down to the threads, and gave it about 10 minutes. (dont get WD40 on the top or your flat head bit or will slip). Trying other things, and thinking up this plan etc etc took me about 2 hrs to get the damn thing off. really sucked. Good luck!!

Would an easy out work instead of cutting the slot?

 

[AndresCoco]

Is it worth, spending money to replace all of them or can I just get by replacing the one that has issues?

 

[mwilk012]

Is it worth, spending money to replace all of them or can I just get by replacing the one that has issues?

Depends on whether you are paying someone else or doing the work yourself. If you’re doing it yourself, save the money. It can only cost you time. If you have to pay for labor, do them all and get a warranty on it.

 

[JeepinPete]

I'm in the middle of performing this repair. Anyone that is comfortable turning wrenches will have no difficulty doing this repair, but it is time consuming. Thanks @moto jeep for your writeup, definitely saved me some pitfalls.

My Jeep turned 70k miles on the last ride home from work. It was way down on power and rattling pretty bad around 3k rpm. Sure enough the right side intake cam had three lobes worn down. Since I was into it this far, I pulled the intake and left side valve cover to check that cam, which was fine.

Finding a replacement cam was a PITA! Tried a couple sellers on ebay, none actually had it. Ended up finding it at a local dealer. Called three of them, prices were $650, $750, and $530. Overpaid but need the Jeep back on the road.

Also replaced the spark plugs and the oil filter housing. The while your in there tax. Glad I did the oil filter housing, the siamesed seals were deformed pretty bad.

I read in another thread about the tools that need to be used. The cheap kit on amazon that locks the cam phaser together did not fit quite right, needed to be tapped into place with a hammer. Looks like it distorted when molded, the phaser sheared a bit of plastic off of it. Once in place it did the job. There is another tool that is supposed to compress the tensioner. Did not need it, a long screw driver worked fine.

As @moto jeep mentioned, the cam did rotate once the phaser was pried off of the old cam. Probably wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been mentioned. That being said, I found a punch fit in the alignment hole in the cam and provided plenty of leverage to rotate the cam to catch the pin the the phaser.

As for accessing all of the bolts, a set of wobble extensions are priceless for this job. I had no trouble getting to the coil bolt for example. The only bolt that was a pain in the butt was a valve cover bolt tucked up under the fuse box tray. I used a box wrench to get it out but picked up a set of stubby ratchet wrenches for the reinstall. Otherwise an 8mm or 10mm socket on the wobble extension did the trick.

Hope to get everything wrapped up tomorrow. By back can only take so much leaning over the fender.

 

[farisz]

In the middle of this project myself, the write-ups were very helpful along with YouTube videos (thank you @ctwombley & @moto jeep ). I recently had a cylinder 5 misfire code after high rpms on the highway along with very rough riding at the same time. I took apart the intake manifold and right side valve cover, and confirmed that the right intake cam has the most posterior lobe shaved down. As there is a crazy shortage of the 6861147AA kits, would it be advised to just replace that rocker and valve cover seals for now and revisit once the camshaft kit arrives? (if it arrives) This is my daily driver and I was told by dealerships it would take about 3 months so I just placed the order with allmoparparts. What would be the best way to go about temporarily patching things together so I can get my car back on the road int he next week or so?

 

[jstockton]

In the middle of this project myself, the write-ups were very helpful along with YouTube videos (thank you @ctwombley & @moto jeep ). I recently had a cylinder 5 misfire code after high rpms on the highway along with very rough riding at the same time. I took apart the intake manifold and right side valve cover, and confirmed that the right intake cam has the most posterior lobe shaved down. As there is a crazy shortage of the 6861147AA kits, would it be advised to just replace that rocker and valve cover seals for now and revisit once the camshaft kit arrives? (if it arrives) This is my daily driver and I was told by dealerships it would take about 3 months so I just placed the order with allmoparparts. What would be the best way to go about temporarily patching things together so I can get my car back on the road int he next week or so?

I did this repair two months ago and the part was on back order then. Exact same lobe. I’m not an expert so I could be wrong but doing a partial repair isn’t worth it. I ended up spending more money than necessary. I found a genuine parts dealer on eBay who has the camshafts along with other parts needed. I was going to just replace one rocker but ended up replacing all of them. The factory service manual states to replace all rockers. I think It makes sense because the old rockers have worn with the old camshaft. Putting a new camshaft in with old rockers can cause abnormal wear leading to doing the repair again in short time. Along with the camshaft and rockers I replaced the phasers and OCVs. The data I captured on my scanner showed that the bad phasers weren’t keeping up with the ones that were good. It seemed that the phasers had worn and were leaking which might have lead to oil starvation on the lobe you have problems with. That lobe is last in the oil flow so if pressure is down it doesn’t get the necessary amount of oil. Here’s a pic of the phaser duty cycle that shows intake cam 2 phaser working harder to keep up. (intake cam 1 was my original issue but cam 2 showed the same symptoms after fixing cam 1). Eventually you can see the duty cycle drops to zero which happens because the duty cycle is out of parameters and the PCM shuts VVT down and defaults timing to lock pin state and leads to poor performance.

As a side note, I have 6 rockers that I bought from the parts dealer online that I’m looking to sell. I bought them just in case but ended up not needing them. It’s outside of the return window on eBay so I can’t return them. I would sell them for less than I paid to recoup some of my money. I can also get you in touch with the parts guy to get a camshaft. Message me if you want to talk more. I have all sorts of pictures and video from my repair that might help you out.

 

[mwilk012]

In the middle of this project myself, the write-ups were very helpful along with YouTube videos (thank you @ctwombley & @moto jeep ). I recently had a cylinder 5 misfire code after high rpms on the highway along with very rough riding at the same time. I took apart the intake manifold and right side valve cover, and confirmed that the right intake cam has the most posterior lobe shaved down. As there is a crazy shortage of the 6861147AA kits, would it be advised to just replace that rocker and valve cover seals for now and revisit once the camshaft kit arrives? (if it arrives) This is my daily driver and I was told by dealerships it would take about 3 months so I just placed the order with allmoparparts. What would be the best way to go about temporarily patching things together so I can get my car back on the road int he next week or so?

salvage yard.

 

[mrtm1970]

I did this repair two months ago and the part was on back order then. Exact same lobe. I’m not an expert so I could be wrong but doing a partial repair isn’t worth it. I ended up spending more money than necessary. I found a genuine parts dealer on eBay who has the camshafts along with other parts needed. I was going to just replace one rocker but ended up replacing all of them. The factory service manual states to replace all rockers. I think It makes sense because the old rockers have worn with the old camshaft. Putting a new camshaft in with old rockers can cause abnormal wear leading to doing the repair again in short time. Along with the camshaft and rockers I replaced the phasers and OCVs. The data I captured on my scanner showed that the bad phasers weren’t keeping up with the ones that were good. It seemed that the phasers had worn and were leaking which might have lead to oil starvation on the lobe you have problems with. That lobe is last in the oil flow so if pressure is down it doesn’t get the necessary amount of oil. Here’s a pic of the phaser duty cycle that shows intake cam 2 phaser working harder to keep up. (intake cam 1 was my original issue but cam 2 showed the same symptoms after fixing cam 1). Eventually you can see the duty cycle drops to zero which happens because the duty cycle is out of parameters and the PCM shuts VVT down and defaults timing to lock pin state and leads to poor performance.

As a side note, I have 6 rockers that I bought from the parts dealer online that I’m looking to sell. I bought them just in case but ended up not needing them. It’s outside of the return window on eBay so I can’t return them. I would sell them for less than I paid to recoup some of my money. I can also get you in touch with the parts guy to get a camshaft. Message me if you want to talk more. I have all sorts of pictures and video from my repair that might help you out.

PM me about the rockers

 

[hilljumper]

The 3.6L in my 2018 JL Sport with 95k miles had been ticking for a few months. It happened at startup and got louder as I accelerated. Originally I thought it was just the 3.6L Pentastar "tick", but as it got worse I knew it wasn't. I took it to my dealer, and they said that they thought it was the vacuum pump, and I should have it replaced. I knew that wasn't right so I left. The problem persisted so I took it to a non-dealer garage and they said that I should take it to the dealer because it probably needed a valve adjustment, they didn't want to touch it.

After researching on the forums, I knew it was probably rocker arm failure. So I ordered a mechanic's stethoscope for $7 to see if I could pinpoint which side it was. I put the stethoscope up to the valve cover at different points on both sides, and sure enough I heard a steady tick at the rear of the passenger side bank. So I started researching and ordering the parts. I already had a good amount of tools but knew I would need some specialty items after watching some YouTube videos. There were no videos online for the updated version of the 3.6L with variable valve lift, just the old JK engines that were just VVT. Almost everything was the same with a few key differences. Here's a summary of the repair, only replacing the passenger side intake cam & rocker arms (the driver's side will be different).

*Disclaimer- This is a guide for somebody on a budget and out of warranty. If you value your time more than money, have the dealer do it. Also, others will say that you should just replace all the rocker arms and lifters while you're inside the engine. I didn't do that because the intake side rocker arms were $107 apiece and the lifters were $18/piece. Multiply that by 12 on each side of the engine, and it adds up.

Tools needed:

1. Ratchet & Socket set- Will need a deep 10mm socket for the valve cover bolts. Will also need a a 36mm socket for the oil control valves, and a 1 & 1/16" socket for the crank bolt.
2. Having a good set of ratcheting wrenches would be good too, but probably not necessary. My Milwaukee electric ratchet also helped a lot, but it can be done with basic tools.
3. You will also need a tool to loosen the cam tensioner. This is the only one I could find that works. It's a little pricey but it works. Do not get the cheaper plastic ones on Amazon, because they are for the JK version of the wrangler.
4. You will however need a piece from one of the cheaper kits to freeze the cam phasers (these are the same on the JK & JL). That kit can be found here.
5. You'll also need vice grips or hose clamp pliers because coolant hoses lay over the valve cover and need to be disconnected to be moved out of the way.
6. You should also have a gasket scraper because the engine comes from the factory with RTV in the crease between the cylinder head and the timing cover. A razor blade will also work if you want to save money.
7. You'll need a T-25 & T-30 Torx bit for the cam bearing caps and a few other things
8. You'll also need a torque wrench that measures foot-lbs (for the cam phaser bolts), and one that measures inch-lbs (for the cam bearing caps)

Supplies needed:

1. RTV- to replace factory RTV on the seam between cylinder head and timing cover
2. Valve cover gaskets- I bought this set, they worked just fine
3. Assembly Lube- Only really necessary if you find out you have to replace the camshaft
4. OW-20 Oil- or whatever oil you run in your jeep. I bought 6 quarts, 1 quart to soak the lifters and rocker arms in, and 5 quarts & a filter to change oil after I was done the repair.
5. Brake Clean- always good to use to clean up dirty surfaces
6. Paint pen- to mark cam phaser covers, camshaft, chain, and phasers

Parts you MAY need, depending on what you find inside the cylinder head:

1. rocker arms- I needed 2 on the intake side, you may need intake, exhaust, or both. The exhaust side can be found here
2. Lifters- Different for intake & exhaust as well. I needed intake side lifters
3. Cam bearing cap bolts- I stripped one trying to get it out (be careful lol) so I just replaced them all
4. Camshaft- If you catch it early enough, you might not need this, but I did. Here's a link to the passenger-side intake camshaft

Total Cost- Not cheap but better than the $3k the dealer wanted

• The total cost was somewhere around $700
• About $275 for 2 rocker arms and 2 lifters (insanity)
• About $225 for the cam
• About $160 for the gaskets and special tools
• About $30 for the cam bearing bolts

Procedure

1. Determine which side the tick is coming from by touching the end of the stethoscope at different points along the valve covers
2. If the tick is on the driver's side, you'll have to remove the intake manifold, but my tick was on the passenger side so I didn't.
3. Remove the engine shroud cover (2 T-30 Torx bolts)
4. Remove air cleaner and housing (Will give you a lot more room to work). There are 5 screws that need to be removed, and the hose clamp will need to be loosened. After that you can pull it straight up, there are 2 grommets on the bottom that will pull out.
5. Remove battery- good practice when working with electrical components
6. Use hose clamp pliers or vice grips to push back the 4 hose clamp clips on the 4 coolant hoses over the valve cover (irrelevant for driver's side), moving them from the grille side of the jeep to the windshield side. Once they are pushed back, try twisting the hose to break the bond between the rubber hose and the metal tube. This was difficult for me so I ended up using vice grips (gently) to break the hoses free. I also used a slim screwdriver to carefully go around under the edge of the hose to unstick it. Be careful during this step because coolant will come out of the hoses. Put a drain pan underneath the Jeep to catch as much as you can.
7. Unclip the fuel hardline and move it out of the way
8. Unbolt coolant hoses from the rear bracket, and unbolt the front bracket from the valve cover to move the hoses out of your way towards the front of the Jeep
9. Unbolt the rear bracket from the valve cover. The top bolt is easy enough, but the bottom one is attached with a nut that is screwed onto one of the valve cover studs and it is very difficult to reach. I had the best luck with a 10mm regular wrench, sockets don't really fit and neither does a ratcheting wrench.
10. Unclip coil packs (push white tabs up with a screwdriver then pinch them and pull connectors off), unbolt coil packs (10mm), and pull them straight out.
11. Unscrew & unclip the camshaft position sensor as well as the other sensor at the opposite end of the valve cover
12. Unclip and remove the PCV valve next to the firewall, It twists clockwise and then you can pull it out
13. Unscrew and unclip the cam phaser covers on the grille side of the valve cover and set them aside. Do not put them in a magnetic parts tray. They are secured with 3 Torx bolts each, either T-25 or T-30. Make sure you label them with a paint pen to remember which one goes where. I put one dot on the left one and 2 dots on the right one.
14. Unscrew the valve cover bolts (10mm), there are 10 or so of them. They stay in the valve cover when you remove it. The valve cover is may be difficult to get off because there are bits of RTV on the front corners. Pry the front corners up gently, remember the valve cover is made of plastic. Once you have the front corners up, lift the whole thing up and push it backward a bit to clear the lip on the backside.
15. Once you have the valve cover off, set it aside.
16. The next step is to get the camshafts into the correct position, mark them, the chain, and the phasers with a paint pen to ensure proper alignment, then use the special tools to release the tension, lock the phasers in place, remove the oil control valve (36mm), remove the cam bearing caps and remove the camshaft (make sure you do one cam at a time). I'm not going to write details on this part, but this video seriesdescribes the process in great detail. There's a part 2 video that you should also watch. The only difference is the chain tension release tool. In the video, he uses the JK tools, which will not work. Use the tool I referenced above. It should look like this before the cam removal
    1. 
17. Once you have the camshaft out, you can inspect it and the rockers for wear. Here's what the 2 bad rocker arms and cam lobes I had looked like:

Rocker arms- You can see where the cam wore them out on top

Camshaft:

18. Remove the bad rocker arms, or all of them if you can afford it, and install new ones and new lifters after you've soaked them in oil for 10-20 minutes. Reallign the old camshaft, or replace it with the new one if you need it. Make sure to put assembly lube on the whole cam if you're installing a new one. Reverse all the previous steps, making sure that you follow the torque specs. The only things you really need to torque are the cam bearing caps, oil control valves, and the valve cover bolts if you're feeling nitpicky.

19. Finally, change your oil and filter. I ran my engine for a little while first to wash any shavings from the cam bearing bolt I stripped down into the oil pan, but you don't have to.

The whole job took about 6 hours of work time, but probably would've been a lot faster and easier if I had a guide like this, so here it is.

If anyone has questions I'll happily reply while it's still fresh in my mind

Camshaft "no longer available for purchase".

 

[LukeDagny]

Complete kit don't need it now bought a torched engine 2 days later dealer calls me I want $1,000 what i paid for torched engine would not sell me just camshaft 414 881 8924

Could I save $300 by buying direct from the same dealer?

 

[mwilk012]

Could I save $300 by buying direct from the same dealer?

if you’re patient, sure.

 

[LukeDagny]

This shows them even less expensive than a dealer. I have an inquiry to see if they're in stock. I'll post up my findings.

https://parts.moparonlineparts.com/...6l-v6-electric-gas/engine--camshaft-and-valve

 

[LukeDagny]

This shows them even less expensive than a dealer. I have an inquiry to see if they're in stock. I'll post up my findings.

https://parts.moparonlineparts.com/...6l-v6-electric-gas/engine--camshaft-and-valve

Moparonlineparts got back to me. Looks like August before the right side intake cam is available. Exhaust side is available now. I guess if you need one before that, Eric Meifert's $1000 mark up price is a bargain.

 

[mrtm1970]

Moparonlineparts got back to me. Looks like August before the right side intake cam is available. Exhaust side is available now. I guess if you need one before that, Eric Meifert's $1000 mark up price is a bargain.

@LukeDagny

FYI... I am taking a chance on this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/335583636577

Purchased with Paypal Credit, so if not on the Up & Up, I nothing physically out of my pocket and can get it refunded. Supposed to be delivered by 6/18/25.

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