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Just out of curiousity, how would the engine of run with this (pic) damaged cam?
I put a new cam in, deleting afm. Pulled the old cam and one lobe was pretty beat up, its in the trash can. But it just made me curious, how would the engine have ran if i had replaced all the other afm components and reused the damaged cam? Almost no difference? A suddle miss you can only feel sitting at a red light? Horribly? The diameter of the damaged lobe was 46.45mm and all the other good lobes measured about 46.65mm with a caliper. Going metric here cuz i dont know how to measure lift like manufacturers do. Again, just curious.
You probably wouldn't notice it right away in how it "runs"; but it wouldn't be too long before you noticed low oil pressure and knocking noises, from the crank and its bearings being destroyed by all the metal chips; and not long after that, total spectacular failure.
In fact if you took that out and just put another cam in without cleaning out the whole thing, I wouldn't be willing to give good odds for long-term success, because there is already so much metal debris that's been shed into it. Not only is all the missing metal from that thing now in your oil, but also, all the metal from the lifter that is equally ground up. One would like to think that the oil filter will catch it all but most often it doesn't. I wish you luck but don't expect miracles.
You probably wouldn't notice it right away in how it "runs"; but it wouldn't be too long before you noticed low oil pressure and knocking noises, from the crank and its bearings being destroyed by all the metal chips; and not long after that, total spectacular failure.
In fact if you took that out and just put another cam in without cleaning out the whole thing, I wouldn't be willing to give good odds for long-term success, because there is already so much metal debris that's been shed into it. Not only is all the missing metal from that thing now in your oil, but also, all the metal from the lifter that is equally ground up. One would like to think that the oil filter will catch it all but most often it doesn't. I wish you luck but don't expect miracles.
how would one "clean it all out"? Change the oil a time or 2 im sure but what else do you do?
Most of it . . . but not all of it . . . winds up in the oil pan and at the oil pump pickup screen if the oil filter doesn't catch it. At the very least, drop the oil pan and see what you find. I'm thinking you will soon have oil pressure problems because you now have damage at the cam bearings, main bearings and rod bearings.
Typically I would pull the motor, tear it down to the short block and remove the crank (except leave the pistons in), pull EVERY oil passage plug out of it, and run rifle/pistol/shotgun brushes through EVERY oil passage as necessary to get the chips out. I would do this at the quarter car wash, and I would buy about 3 or 4 cans of "engine degreaser" (diesel fuel in a spray can) to use before I began blasting THE LIVING HELL out of every place that oil goes inside the motor.
THIMK: if a (singular... ONE) metal shaving gets past the filter, it is now IN THE OIL PASSAGES. From there, after you start up your "new" motor, it has ONLY EXACTLY ONE PLACE to go: right straight directly into the BEARINGS. Main bearings, rod bearings, cam bearings. Instant and inevitable destruction is the only possible result.
I've had ALOT of motors of my own in my lifetime, and have built/worked on/repaired other people's MANY times more than that. I've had LOTS of cams fail like that; mostly the old flat-tappet kind, fewer roller type. I think the success rate from slapping a new cam into a freshly rolled-lobe situation, has about a 10% chance of going more than 20,000 miles or so. You might get lucky, but myself, every single time in my life I've ever depended on "luck" WITHOUT EXCEPTION, it failed me. Yours maybe different.
Like I said, best of luck to you, but don't expect miracles. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your situation has relatively little (though NOT zero) chance of a happy ending. Or a positive outcome for that matter. It COULD be just fine, and I hope it is, but as far as laying odds, ... not so much. The appearance of your cam bearing is hopeful: I don't see metal chips embedded in it. If I did, I'd be even more pessimistic.
Too much doom and gloom here, I'd keep running it and not care.
Seen tons of camshafts like that in shops and those engines are still going. I bought a used engine for parts with 2 damaged camshaft lobes, it had over 215,000 miles on it before a connecting rod failure from hydrolock. The main bearings looked just fine because the oil filter caught everything while the damage was happening.
Yup, CAN definitely happen that way. Doesn't always though. Not every time.
Keep doing what you're doing; just, don't get too disappointed if it takes a left turn a few miles on down the road. It's a crap shoot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Only way you'll know is to try and see.
09-19-2021, 09:52 AM
Just out of curiousity, how would the engine of run with this (pic) damaged cam?
It COULD be just fine, and I hope it is, but as far as laying odds, ... not so much. The appearance of your cam bearing is hopeful: I don't see metal chips embedded in it. If I did, I'd be even more pessimistic.
