You could easily think it seated but have the bolts pull the opti down more and put pressure on the opti with the cam pin.

It is also very likely the cam pin could be pushed back in further without removing the timing cover if you can verify that it is too long using playdo or something.

 

Yes it does but the seal has plenty of surface. Not recommending to shim it more than about 1/8 inch or so, and that's if the dowl can't be pushed further in with it in the car and he doesn't want to grind it down some and risk getting metal flakes in that same seal.

 

According to what reputable source?

 

Pin needs to contact the opti at least to half the depth of the key way..got to use a few brain cells to determine what depth is needed, not a blanket determination to just shim it to the max 1/8...think

 

This thread is heading in the wrong direction. Measure the pin length and be done with it.

 

Seriously? Shim the opti out? Now I've heard everything.

 

Maybe some of you experts can explain why shimming out the opti is such a horrible thing?
I had the grinding noise a long time ago coming from the opti and it was suggested to me on this board to determine how deep the dowl pin was sitting into the opti and then either see if the pin can be tapped lightly and pushed in further, or shim out the opti.....
The dowl pin in my case would not budge with a few light taps and was pushing into the back of the opti drive so I used 1/32 thick washers and shimmed it out...Worked like a charm, no more grinding noise, been well over 50k miles since and no oil leaks..
Seemed like a logical and easy solution rather than beating any harder on the cam snout or trying to grind it down and get metal flakes in the opti seal, etc..??? I've seen this suggested on several threads where folks describe a grinding sound coming from the front.

 

I didn't say it was a "horrible thing". But deciding to shim the Opti before actually measuring the length of the dowel pin makes no sense at all.

My concern with the thread was that it appeared it was getting to the point of name calling and insults about to be thrown by egos, and I was simply trying to get it back on track.

 

Never said to shim without measuring, only after determining the pin is bottoming out in the back of the opti, which would be a cause for the grinding noise, hence why you use the putty to see the actual impression of the pin into the opti.