Don't Store a Camshaft for Too Long a Period

After my first small block build I did not have the oil pump drive indexed and the vacuum advance was hitting the firewall. This resulted in not being able to time the engine correctly for the initial fire-up. And that resulted in a wiped camshaft lobe. Isky was kind enough to send me a "warranty" cam, but I put a hotter camshaft in the rebuild of the rebuild.

The warranty camshaft was stored in it's original box/packing, but 30 years later when I examined it during a move, I found a good layer of rust. I did not want to chance using it after that discovery, so I threw it out. Did not think at the time it could have been saved in some way?

My advice is to bath your camshafts in some kind of lubricant (40wt motor oil?) and check on them once a year to find if they have suffered any weathering/storage deterioration.