I was told by a local
I was told by a local mechanic that the failed head gasket on my 2013 Prius v would be best remedied by a new motor. Since my son wants to go to MIT and be an engineer, I thought that, since the motor had a death sentence anyway, we might as well try the gasket replacement job. Worst case, we’d be towing the car to the mechanic instead of driving it. We’ve taken our time, handled resurfacing and torquing of new head bolts, etc, and all has gone reasonably well. But we got stuck in a spot I didn’t think would be difficult: placing the cam shaft assembly on the head block and having it seat properly on the new RTV seal. I’ve managed to get it on the rear guide pins (not easy without messing up the RTV) and fit snugly on the back, but smallest gap I can manage on the front is about 1/16”. I tried “settling” it with a rubber mallet, but it won’t budge. We installed all the bolts, and I assuming torquing them down would take away the gap, but I don’t want to bend or flatten anything if something’s out of alignment (the first attempt, I noticed one of the valve lifters had mis-aligned and was trapped under the frame of the assy.) Is there a trick I’m missing that makes this easy? We’re doing this with the block still in the car, so obviously the angles are more difficult. About to go buy more RTV for our third attempt where we’ll prob try some carpentry clamps, if I can figure a way to get them to grab to press it into place...