Scratched a cam bearing. Now what?

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I don't remember ever replacing cam bearings for a cam swap.
I do remember using wheel bearing grease for cam break- in a few times. lol
 

fishmens67 said:
I don't remember ever replacing cam bearings for a cam swap.
I do remember using wheel bearing grease for cam break- in a few times. lol
Click to expand...
Well, I admit fully, on my cheap & nasty slant 6 project I just built, I left the old cam bearings in and even reused the original 66 rod and main bearings. So as Daddy used to say, "Do as I say, not as I do". LMAO
 
Lots of good responses. First and formost, thank you to everyone!
The history of the motor is that it came out of an RV. Low mileage but lots of sitting. I put it in last year after giving it a new waterpump, LD340 intake, new seals and carb. Everything else is as stock. I can still see factory hone marks on the cylinders and it had good oil pressure. We put about 800 trouble free miles on it last fall.
Currently, it is in the bay and we're pulling the top end off to do cam, dual springs and lifters as well as a new timing gear set. I'll pull the heads for the springs and check valve seal while I'm in there.
What I'm hearing from the feedback is that if I was pressed for time, I could slide the new cam in and it will be fine. I'm also hearing that installing new cam bearings isn't too difficult and if I have the time, it wouldn't be a bad idea to buy the tool and bearings and get it done for piece of mind.
Since we still have snow on the ground here, I've got some time. I'm planning on doing the Power Tour this summer so that piece of mind is worth something. I guess I'll start educating myself on installing those bearings. :thumbsup:
 
OttawaCharger said:
Lots of good responses. First and formost, thank you to everyone!
The history of the motor is that it came out of an RV. Low mileage but lots of sitting. I put it in last year after giving it a new waterpump, LD340 intake, new seals and carb. Everything else is as stock. I can still see factory hone marks on the cylinders and it had good oil pressure. We put about 800 trouble free miles on it last fall.
Currently, it is in the bay and we're pulling the top end off to do cam, dual springs and lifters as well as a new timing gear set. I'll pull the heads for the springs and check valve seal while I'm in there.
What I'm hearing from the feedback is that if I was pressed for time, I could slide the new cam in and it will be fine. I'm also hearing that installing new cam bearings isn't too difficult and if I have the time, it wouldn't be a bad idea to buy the tool and bearings and get it done for piece of mind.
Since we still have snow on the ground here, I've got some time. I'm planning on doing the Power Tour this summer so that piece of mind is worth something. I guess I'll start educating myself on installing those bearings. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

If you are doing the power tour you’d be off your rocker to leave them in.

I need to go back and read the op but I don’t remember reading that.

Leaving those in there in your scenario is stepping over a donut to grab a turd.

Change them out.

Edit: you did NOT say a damned thing about doing PT.

I don’t read every post in every thread. Most do but some of us don’t.

This is exactly how bad advice gets out. You hold back information. Bad idea.

Next time tell us what the plan is. @RustyRatRod’s magic 8 ball **** the bed so we can’t use that for information any more.

We can’t read your mind. Damn.

Change them out
 
Honestly, I'm not sure how doing PT or not changes things? I suppose I could have added that my car is a driver? I could also add that my 17 year old son will put more miles on it than I do.
 
OttawaCharger said:
I'm not sure how doing PT or not changes things?
Click to expand...
I don't either. other than piece of mind.
Delamination? failure? well if so then I'd have to worry about the mains and rods, no different than changing out the cam bearings for piece of mind, if ya know what I mean.
 
Newbomb Turk said:
If you are doing the power tour you’d be off your rocker to leave them in.
Click to expand...
What's that got to do with anything if he has good oil pressure?
Do you suggest changing the rods and mains and maybe a hone and ring job while he's at it. lol
 
fishmens67 said:
I don't either. other than piece of mind.
Delamination? failure? well if so then I'd have to worry about the mains and rods, no different than changing out the cam bearings for piece of mind, if ya know what I mean.
Click to expand...


Ok. I’ll bite. You are going to spend $$$$ to go on the POWER TOUR and you want to save on cam bearings (75 bucks?) and installing them (50 bucks).

That makes zero sense. I thought this was something you were throwing back together with low expectations. You want to do PT and if it lives you’ll keep going until it fails.

Again, if you want good advice give good detail.

Change them out. Buy the tool and do it yourself but it’s dumb to do that for a one time thing.
 
Newbomb Turk said:
Ok. I’ll bite. You are going to spend $$$$ to go on the POWER TOUR and you want to save on cam bearings (75 bucks?) and installing them (50 bucks).

That makes zero sense. I thought this was something you were throwing back together with low expectations. You want to do PT and if it lives you’ll keep going until it fails.

Again, if you want good advice give good detail.

Change them out. Buy the tool and do it yourself but it’s dumb to do that for a one time thing.
Click to expand...

Damn. Quoted the wrong post.

I was going to tell you to see post 36 lol.

And if I was doing it I would mic everything and fix it.

I don’t do half assed unless I have to.
 
Newbomb Turk said:
@RustyRatRod’s magic 8 ball **** the bed so we can’t use that for information any more.
Click to expand...
@RustyRatRod has a crystal ball, but it's in the shop right now.

i'm the one with the magic 8 ball.

so let's consult, shall we?

should OP change out the cam bearings?

*shakes magic 8 ball*

"without a doubt"

there you have it.
 
fishmens67 said:
So you would rebuild the engine, because you know if the cam bearings are delaminated then so are the mains and rods.
Click to expand...


I’m saying if it was MINE and it wasn’t a “throw it together so my dumb *** can make Rod Run” I’d measure everything and fix what’s wrong.

Again, it’s ******* crazy when guys ask for advice and then give you 10% of the story.

That’s some bullshit. Then they ***** their eyes out on here about how bad they got hosed when it’s their fault.

When you call them on it the slobbering knaves come along and support the offender.

That **** is getting old.

Now I say leave it alone and run it. That’s what the OP wanted to hear in the first place.
 
I'd stick a cam in it and make 10 sec runs until it kicked a delaminated rod bearing out the side. LOL
For piece of mind just change the things, at least you'll know the cam bearings are good.
 
fishmens67 said:
I'd stick a cam in it and make 10 sec runs until it kicked a delaminated rod bearing out the side. LOL
For piece of mind just change the things, at least you'll know the cam bearings are good.
Click to expand...

Here’s one for you.

My uncle had a 1972 Pontiac GP. Gold with a white vinyl top and white interior. It was a beautiful car.

In fact I’ve mentioned the car before. I was a cocky punk. I was making money doing some street racing and my uncle heard about it.

My dumb *** cousin (his son) who struggles to drive a shopping cart, and he told my uncle how I drive and how cocky I was.


Anyway, my cousin told him how I was driving. Slow shifts. Bad launch techniques. He didn’t know that but my uncle did.

So he calls me out!

He kicked my *** sideways. Of course, I said you have more inches, and automatic.

So we swap cars and he uses my car to humble my ***. Smoked me like a Philly blunt.

I said show me how you did it. He said no chance until you fix your head.

It took a couple of months before he taught me. The humiliation of smoking me in my own car after he smoked me with his car and the wait to learn was well worth the price. I made a lot of money, a lot more money after I really learned how to drive a clutch.

All that for this. About 5 years later my uncle decides to change the cam in the Poncho. My dad says Dennis is changing cams. Are you going to help us. I can’t say no so off we go.

We get it apart and the first thing we see are the cam bearings. They were chowdered. Way worse than the OP.

My dad and uncle say, well we need to change those out. I said then I’m out. I’m not pulling this pig out to install cam bearings in it. Who knows what else will be looking crunchy.

My uncle says let’s do it in the car. I say ok, you R&R the transmission and I’ll do the bearings. Then he says well ****.

I said yeah, ****. Then I said was it running? Yes. Did it have good oil pressure? Yes. Did it make any noise? Nope. Then WTF are we talking about.

It’s running fine and you had zero clue there’s an issue. Let’s change the cam and go. If you have an issue later, we can fix it then.

I was younger then. Today is never do that. Live and learn.

He signs off on it and goes and get the cam. It’s a 300 Isky hydraulic! I’m like WTF Dennis? Did you buy the cam from the bottom of the page?

He’s says nope. I called around and the agreement is this is THE cam. I’m thinking ok, you did the checking on things, we should be golden.

He did have a 3.73 gear and a 2800 converter. So I’m thinking if he did the research let’s go!!

We get it lit and break it in. To this day I remember how good the Pontiac sounded. It was crisp. Damn.

So he says I need smokes. Let’s run to the store.

Off we go. The store is about 4 blocks away. We pull into the parking lot like normal and next thing you know, we are heading to the front window.

My dad is flipping his lid because my uncle isn’t stopping and we are about to jump the curb.

He has both hands on the wheel, both feet on the brakes, my dad is telling him get this MF’r stopped before we run through the store and I’m just in the back seat waiting for the crash.

Somehow he just bumped the building and got it stopped.

My dad says “hey, you smoke some dope before we left”? My uncle says nope, it will not stop. Not wanting to be left out, I say doesn’t this piece of **** have an emergency brake??

Everyone’s yelling, the store clerk is bitching at us, customers are running around jacking off at the mouth.

We all get out of the car and tell them all to STFU and move on.

The good thing is we didn’t do any damage to the car or the 7-11. No one got hurt. My uncle got his cancer sticks and we head back to his place, knowing the brakes were not working.

The cancer sticks are what killed his dumb *** BTW. If you read this and you are still smoking that **** QUIT NOW. People die too soon with out using that **** and help the grim reaper.

We got a vacuum gauge on it and it had 7-8 inches. We laughed and said we’re lucky it stopped at all.

We pulled it back apart, got that cam out and the next day he went down and bought a 270 Isky hydraulic.

It was much better and the car was surprisingly fast. I think he finally got that pig to run a 12.98 or something.

He sold the car about 10 years later to a buddy. Still running the same bearings. He got lucky. I don’t have that kind of luck.

Moral of the story?

Don’t be cocky when it comes to drag racing. You can lose your ***, your pride and your money in the blink of an eye.

Think it through when buying parts. If my uncle had manual brakes that 300 cam would beat the brakes off the 270. It’s more important to stop than go. He got lucky we didn’t end up in the walk in cooler of the 7-11. Or hurt or kill someone. Pay attention.

Don’t rely on luck. Like I said, he could have hurt some people and wrecked the car and the building. He got LUCKY.

He also got LUCKY on the cam bearings. I ran into the guy who bought the car from my uncle a few years later at the bar. He was a local dope dealer.

So I told him the story and he wanted to kick my *** for telling him and my uncles *** for not telling him. A few hours and several drinks later he saw the humor in it.

He did stop in and ***** my uncle out though. I figured he deserved that lol.
 
Last edited:
Newbomb Turk said:
Ok. I’ll bite. You are going to spend $$$$ to go on the POWER TOUR and you want to save on cam bearings (75 bucks?) and installing them (50 bucks).

That makes zero sense. I thought this was something you were throwing back together with low expectations. You want to do PT and if it lives you’ll keep going until it fails.

Again, if you want good advice give good detail.

Change them out. Buy the tool and do it yourself but it’s dumb to do that for a one time thing.
Click to expand...
We always say “your way to winning races starts in the shop” does not matter if your some broke dick team racing 24 hours of Lemons, or some old fart racing his F1 car or a pro team, if the bucket of bolts is not right you have no chance…
 
Newbomb Turk said:
Ok. I’ll bite. You are going to spend $$$$ to go on the POWER TOUR and you want to save on cam bearings (75 bucks?) and installing them (50 bucks).

That makes zero sense. I thought this was something you were throwing back together with low expectations. You want to do PT and if it lives you’ll keep going until it fails.

Again, if you want good advice give good detail.

Change them out. Buy the tool and do it yourself but it’s dumb to do that for a one time thing.
Click to expand...
Are you pricing out gold plated cam bearings?
 
Newbomb Turk said:
Here’s one for you.

My uncle had a 1972 Pontiac GP. Gold with a white vinyl top and white interior. It was a beautiful car.

In fact I’ve mentioned the car before. I was a cocky punk. I was making money doing some street racing and my uncle heard about it.

My dumb *** cousin (his son) who struggles to drive a shopping cart, and he told my uncle how I drive and how cocky I was.


Anyway, my cousin told him how I was driving. Slow shifts. Bad launch techniques. He didn’t know that but my uncle did.

So he calls me out!

He kicked my *** sideways. Of course, I said you have more inches, and automatic.

So we swap cars and he uses my car to humble my ***. Smoked me like a Philly blunt.

I said show me how you did it. He said no chance until you fix your head.

It took a couple of months before he taught me. The humiliation of smoking me in my own car after he smoked me with his car and the wait to learn was well worth the price. I made a lot of money, a lot more money after I really learned how to drive a clutch.

All that for this. About 5 years later my uncle decides to change the cam in the Poncho. My dad says Dennis is changing cams. Are you going to help us. I can’t say no so off we go.

We get it apart and the first thing we see are the cam bearings. They were chowdered. Way worse than the OP.

My dad and uncle say, well we need to change those out. I said then I’m out. I’m not pulling this pig out to install cam bearings in it. Who knows what else will be looking crunchy.

My uncle says let’s do it in the car. I say ok, you R&R the transmission and I’ll do the bearings. Then he says well ****.

I said yeah, ****. Then I said was it running? Yes. Did it have good oil pressure? Yes. Did it make any noise? Nope. Then WTF are we talking about.

It’s running fine and you had zero clue there’s an issue. Let’s change the cam and go. If you have an issue later, we can fix it then.

I was younger then. Today is never do that. Live and learn.

He signs off on it and goes and get the cam. It’s a 300 Isky hydraulic! I’m like WTF Dennis? Did you buy the cam from the bottom of the page?

He’s says nope. I called around and the agreement is this is THE cam. I’m thinking ok, you did the checking on things, we should be golden.

He did have a 3.73 gear and a 2800 converter. So I’m thinking if he did the research let’s go!!

We get it lit and break it in. To this day I remember how good the Pontiac sounded. It was crisp. Damn.

So he says I need smokes. Let’s run to the store.

Off we go. The store is about 4 blocks away. We pull into the parking lot like normal and next thing you know, we are heading to the front window.

My dad is flipping his lid because my uncle isn’t stopping and we are about to jump the curb.

He has both hands on the wheel, both feet on the brakes, my dad is telling him get this MF’r stopped before we run through the store and I’m just in the back seat waiting for the crash.

Somehow he just bumped the building and got it stopped.

My dad says “hey, you smoke some dope before we left”? My uncle says nope, it will not stop. Not wanting to be left out, I say doesn’t this piece of **** have an emergency brake??

Everyone’s yelling, the store clerk is bitching at us, customers are running around jacking off at the mouth.

We all get out of the car and tell them all to STFU and move on.

The good thing is we didn’t do any damage to the car or the 7-11. No one got hurt. My uncle got his cancer sticks and we head back to his place, knowing the brakes were not working.

The cancer sticks are what killed his dumb *** BTW. If you read this and you are still smoking that **** QUIT NOW. People die too soon with out using that **** and help the grim reaper.

We got a vacuum gauge on it and it had 7-8 inches. We laughed and said we’re lucky it stopped at all.

We pulled it back apart, got that cam out and the next day he went down and bought a 270 Isky hydraulic.

It was much better and the car was surprisingly fast. I think he finally got that pig to run a 12.98 or something.

He sold the car about 10 years later to a buddy. Still running the same bearings. He got lucky. I don’t have that kind of luck.

Moral of the story?

Don’t be cocky when it comes to drag racing. You can lose your ***, your pride and your money in the blink of an eye.

Think it through when buying parts. If my uncle had manual brakes that 300 cam would beat the brakes off the 270. It’s more important to stop than go. He got lucky we didn’t end up in the walk in cooler of the 7-11. Or hurt or kill someone. Pay attention.

Don’t rely on luck. Like I said, he could have hurt some people and wrecked the car and the building. He got LUCKY.

He also got LUCKY on the cam bearings. I ran into the guy who bought the car from my uncle a few years later at the bar. He was a local dope dealer.

So I told him the story and he wanted to kick my *** for telling him and my uncles *** for not telling him. A few hours and several drinks later he saw the humor in it.

He did stop in and ***** my uncle out though. I figured he deserved that lol.
Click to expand...
So you were young and cocky. What's changed other than you're old? LOL
 
I would replace the cam brgs. You have at least two that have de-laminated. Who knows where THAT metal went.......& if the brgs are not replaced & continue to deteriorate....where will that metal go &/or what passage might it block.
 
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