Thread: Cam Bearings, sigh.

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So, in my last thread I asked about which cam to get to support the motor I'm building. Got all my stuff in from summit, and went to work on the motor.

All lifters and everthing valvetrain related was off, and the motor was on the stand as a longblock. Pulled the cam gear off, took off the chain, and reinstalled the cam gear as a handle. Flipped the motor over on the stand to check from obstruction, and made sure the cam had a bit of oil on it to expedite removal.

Pulled the cam out, first set of lobes came out without a problem, second came out fine, third was a bit of restriction, which slid past, then the rest of the cam.
I noticed something shiny on the distributor gear on the cam, and found that it was a sliver of metal.

Running my finger over the cam bearing closest to the timing cover, I felt a large chunk taken out .

So, Can I get new cam bearings pressed in with the rotating assembly installed, or do I have to tear it down again? How much should this run me?

Thanks for your help on the other aspects of this project so far folks,
Rob.

You could put cam bearings in with the short block assembled, but with a chunk missing from one, I think I would probably want to dissassemble, hot tank, thouroughly scrub out all the oil galleys and rinse the block... Hate to have another peice or peices luriking in the engine somewhere that will come back later and do some serious damage. Cam bearings usually run around $15.00, probably around another 25 or so for installation.

If you chewed the chunk out while pulling the cam, and the rest of the bearings are OK, I'd just take it to an engine shop and get them to put the one in. You'll have to buy a full set, but there's no point in changing the others. How many miles on the engine?

Thanks, been on vacation in the Bay Area, just got back to check this out.

Hard to say how many miles are on the block. It had some nice carbon rings in the cylinders, but you can still see the hash marks on the cylinder walls. Tough call.

I'm gonna get back on this tomorrow, and see what I can do as far as those bearings go.

See ya!
-Rob