Heating the cam gear- Induction heaters

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getblown5.9

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I read the thread the other day where highfinance had a cam gear break after he had heated it to press it on/off etc. Everyne said heating the gear is bad because it weakens it and I'll agree. I assume most people were doing this with a torch of some kind and applying heat from the outside.

What if you were to use a bearing induction heater? This is a more controlled heat and heats the metal equally. The guy helping me press my cam gear off and on did it once before on another persons cam using the induction heater because it makes the job alot easier vs. just trying to use excessive force to press the gear off.
 
I always use an oven. Heated to 250* and get the cam nice and cold.
 
what about getting the gear off the old cam?

the high today is about 27* here, ill leave the new cam outside so its cold, i dont have a freezer big enough to put it in.
 
where i work, we just press the old gear off cold. and when installing them, we put cam in the freezer for a couple hours and the gear in an oven at 400 for about 20 min, then they press together pretty easy.
ed
 
I did like Pinky49 did, though I think I heated mine to about 350°. Piers told me how - put it in the oven cold, let it heat up as the oven heats and leave it for at least a 1/2 hour. Slow and even is the key. I put the cam in the freezer as well. When it was time to put them together the gear dropped on with a nice clean metalic clink.

-Jay
 
I threw mine in cooking oil at about 400* and dropped it right on the new cam...we've done that for years with flywheel ring gears, cam gears, crank gears, bearings, etc...never had a problem that I know of!

Chris
 
I pressed many items together till I was shown the right way to apply heat. I always worried about heating gears and such till a good fried that worked at the Mack powertrain plant shop showed me the proper way. :D Thanks Joe! :) lol

I still press a lot of stuff together, but as mentioned a induction heater works very good, if used properly. We used heat to put all the gears back on the shafts in my trans when it was down for the rebuild.
 
I think the cummins manual says to use heat on the gear correct? We put them in a gas grill, and heated them.
 
Cummins says to heat cam gears in an oven. We use a small toaster oven at work to heat the gear up and they will slide right on.
 
I used heat because my press is not long enough...

I would like to hear Don M's opinion.
 
I already go the old gear off, came off pretty easy with the press.
I'm going to wait for T.J to get here later to install it on the new cam.
As far as heating gears and bearings goes, i do it all the time. SKF told me that you should never exceed 250*, after that temp the metal stops growing and if it gets too hot you can ruin the steel. Starts changing the metallurgy of the metal. Never use a torch as you can't control the amount of even heat.
DSC00339.jpg
 
cquestad said:
I used heat because my press is not long enough...

I would like to hear Don M's opinion.
Click to expand...

Back when I did mine Don M. told me to heat the gear in the oven ( can't remember what temperature ) slipped rite on no problem. Dons the MAN !!! Thanks Steve B.
 
getblown5.9 said:
I read the thread the other day where highfinance had a cam gear break after he had heated it to press it on/off etc. Everyne said heating the gear is bad because it weakens it and I'll agree. I assume most people were doing this with a torch of some kind and applying heat from the outside.

What if you were to use a bearing induction heater? This is a more controlled heat and heats the metal equally. The guy helping me press my cam gear off and on did it once before on another persons cam using the induction heater because it makes the job alot easier vs. just trying to use excessive force to press the gear off.
Click to expand...


I didnt heat it with a torch..
it looks like the shop i brought it to did $.02

I thought i had better pictures to see how it looks torched but this is all i could find....
Michael20engine20003.jpg

Michael20engine20005.jpg

Michael20engine20006.jpg

TORCHED21.jpg

Michael20engine20004.jpg
 
JGK said:
I did like Pinky49 did, though I think I heated mine to about 350°. Piers told me how - put it in the oven cold, let it heat up as the oven heats and leave it for at least a 1/2 hour. Slow and even is the key. I put the cam in the freezer as well. When it was time to put them together the gear dropped on with a nice clean metalic clink.

-Jay
Click to expand...

I do the all gears with this method, :rockwoot:
 
I have always just press off and on no problem no heat.
 
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