Liquid gasket position between cylinder head and camshaft housing

[phantom-uk]

After carrying out a cylinder head replacement following the VW workshop technician manual, I’m now ready to install the camshaft housing onto the cylinder head.
According to the manual, it asks for a 2mm bead of liquid gasket applied as shown in the accompanying drawing.
My mechanic advisor tells me to apply it on the flat surface of the camshaft housing, as this is the usual place to put it for flange joints and where he has always applied it to.
But the workshop manual maybe suggests that the bead goes into and follows the groove that sits on the inside edge of the camshaft housing flange. Incidentally, the groove in the camshaft housing is 2mm wide. And the pink line that is shown in the workshop manual is exactly where the groove is on the camshaft housing.
All advice welcome. Thank you.

 

[Dellmassive]

Not done the job myself.

But I'd assume to follow the VW workshop manual.

 

[phantom-uk]

Actual camshaft housing face to be mated with cylinder head face.

 

[DXX]

I’m with @Dellmassive. It’s fairly obvious that the groove is there for a reason.
The mating parts have to pull down metal to metal just leaving the groove filled, the excess will be extruded and need to be cleaned up to avoid clogging the oil strainer.

 

[Dellmassive]

Yet the housing in the pic above has no groove.

So back to plan A.

A 2mm bead to be applied as if the groove was there.?

 

[phantom-uk]

Where the pink line is on the diagram in the workshop manual, it correlates with the inside edge of the camshaft housing inner edge. The inside edge of the camshaft housing is made up of a 2mm wide groove in places and a 2mm chamfer in other places. Note that on the workshop diagram there appears to be three “blobs” of pink if you zoom in, which correlate with the three areas circled in yellow in the photo of my camshaft housing. Also in the diagram there is an extra short pink straight line near the top which again correlates with a straight piece of casting that’s the same depth (2mm) of the groove.
I’ve seen a couple of videos on YouTube showing sealant being applied to grooves but the grooves are continuous ones that lie along the midline of the flange face, unlike at the inside edge of my camshaft housing.
You can see my dilemma, it’s not as “obvious” as first glance.
I called my local VW van centre for advice and they were less than forthcoming with any help, which I expected from similar previous information requests (they’ll happily carry out the work for you or sell you the parts to do the work yourself but they won’t give any advice on how to do it).
Thank you for your input thus far.

 

[DXX]

What does the mating surface on the head look like?

 

[phantom-uk]

What does the mating surface on the head look like?

This is the original head that the camshaft housing came off. I have not used this one for the rebuild as it was damaged while it was at the workshop. But it is in the same status as when it came apart from the camshaft housing.
It can be seen that there is a ridge of sealant on the inside edge and the outside edge of the flange face, which may well suggest that whoever applied the sealant did so by applying it along the mid-line of the flange face and not in the groove, I’ve mentioned.
BUT, I’m the third owner of the van and it may have had some similar work done to it before I purchased it.
So the liquid gasket may have been put in a different position than that it would have been applied when it was assembled new, to specification, in the car factory. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There is no groove in the cylinder head mating surface, just a flat flange face along its whole length

 

[DXX]

Mmm, I see the dilemma. Although it looks like there is no jointing residue on the contact area it will be filling the rough machined finish. Obviously anything internal or external isn’t serving any oil sealing purpose.
I would advise to thoroughly degrease and apply to the sealing face as the garage mech’ stated, be sure to torque down correctly within the liquid joint time frame and re-check.

 

[phantom-uk]

Thank you both to this point with your time and advice, much appreciated.
I am leaning more towards applying it as recommended by my mechanic advisor and yourselves at this time.
Let’s say I do apply it to the flange face only, what are your thoughts about applying sealant as depicted by the extra three pink blobs and the separate pink straight line on the workshop manual drawing? Is it that the workshop manual isn’t an accurate tool or maybe it's a mis-print?
The attached picture of my camshaft housing is a close up of the area where the workshop manual suggests the position of more sealant is applied in addition to the main bead of sealant.

 

[DXX]

I can’t imagine it would be of any benefit as it won’t be in compression with a mating face.

 

[phantom-uk]

I can’t imagine it would be of any benefit as it won’t be in compression with a mating face.

Unless it was a temporary fix to a problem when it was all assembled and the oil flowing, perhaps it’s to help direct oil into the corner of the housing seeing as the sealant isn’t along the whole length of that ridge. Then later design revisions made a more permanent “oil guide” in the subsequent castings?

 

[phantom-uk]

Can I ask please guys, if you can have a look at any worship manuals you have yourselves and see if you have the same drawing with pink line in the same place as my workshop manual has?
It’s under the cylinder head section.
Thank you.

 

[DXX]

VIP Membership will give you access to the manuals and much more.

 

[phantom-uk]

VIP Membership will give you access to the manuals and much more.

I already have a workshop manual, purchased after advice from Dellmasive.
I meant your own personally owned workshop manuals, for comparison.
If the workshop manual is not clear on exactly where the sealant is to be applied and answers from members are “best guesses” because they agree the manual isn’t clear and they haven’t experienced the task in question to come up with a definititive standardised answer to the original query, I don’t think the answer would be found any deeper in the forum by purchasing vip membership.
I do however believe a thank you for all of the knowledge you took time to input to the query is warranted, so thank you
Dellmassive and DXX thus far.
I’ll leave the post open a few more days before I act in case other members wish to contribute or a definite standardised answer to the specific query is revealed.

 

[mmi]

Can I ask please guys, if you can have a look at any worship manuals you have yourselves and see if you have the same drawing with pink line in the same place as my workshop manual has?
It’s under the cylinder head section.
Thank you.

Exactly the same drawing and the text in workshop manual edition 11.2022.
However, the current workshop manual in the erWin is very fresh.

 

[phantom-uk]

Exactly the same drawing and the text in workshop manual edition 11.2022.
However, the current workshop manual in the erWin is very fresh.
View attachment 241825

Hi mmi, thank you for clarifying that the same drawing is in the 2022 workshop manual, this tells me that it’s not a mis-print in my 2019 manual and it definitively answers one of the questions from above.
I do not know what “erWin” is, can you elaborate please?
Thank you

 

[phantom-uk]

Hi mmi, thank you for clarifying that the same drawing is in the 2022 workshop manual, this tells me that it’s not a mis-print in my 2019 manual and it definitively answers one of the questions from above.
I do not know what “erWin” is, can you elaborate please?
Thank you

I have found erWin online and can see what it offers, thank you for the suggestion.
If you have access to it currently or if you have used it in the past to clarify exactly where the sealant needs to be applied whilst carrying out the same work as I am doing (i.e. mating the camshaft housing to the cylinder head), can you tell me if gives a definitive description and/or diagram to fully answer my original query and thus rule out any guesswork arising from the inaccurate diagram in my 2019 workshop manual.
Thank you.

 

[roadtripper]

I believe if you register with Erwin you can view all the indexes for free and only need to buy time for downloading the sections you need.

 

[phantom-uk]

I believe if you register with Erwin you can view all the indexes for free and only need to buy time for downloading the sections you need.

Excellent idea and input, thank you @roadtripper