JeffK

After a full year of sitting on the GP items I bought last year from Combo Motorsports, I finally brought my car in for the cam install. Upon pulling the stock cam we find that the cam bearings are shot after only 56k miles. I could tell it wasn't good when a fellow worker walks by, sees the cam bearings, and yells out "Holy S**t!"
Seeing as I have owned the car since 97 since it had 12.6k miles at that time, I have a real tough time understanding how a motor with nothing but Mobil 1 (changed without fail every 3k miles) could have scarred bearings like I saw. I took a picture so I could re-live the moment.
Of course, the next question is "How much to fix it?" and I get "$1k". I feel sick to my stomach since I have zero dollars to spend above and beyond what I did for the install of the cam.
Thanks for letting me vent. What would you guys do?

shoebox

If you are only looking at the front cam bearing, it usually looks the worst. Looks like you have a few choices:
-Put it all back like it was until you have more money
-put new cam in and treat it very nicely until you have more money
-find more money

Whether you are doing the work yourself, would have some bearing on your decision.

Loadre

The irony of that last part of that sentence. I'm hoping you meant to put that.

ibanez6rg

Can't you change out the front cam bearing without taking the engine out? I know you're supposed to not only change one without the rest, but in a situation like this. Especially if that is the only really bad one in there.

But if it's truely that bad, I doubt your other ones are in that great of shape.

shoebox

Yeah, just the front one could be done without pulling the engine. Might be a reasonable band-aid in this situation.

whontime

What does that $1000 price cover? There is no way I would pay 1K for a bearing install. Do you have the space available to work on the car yourself? If so just take it home and do the work yourself. Its hard for me to believe that the bearings are that worn at the mileage you stated. Replacing the bearings won't cost you much if you can do the work yourself and there aren't any other internal problems with the engine.
EDIT: Also, you said that you have a picture. Is the detail good? If so could you provide a link to it?

JeffK

That was initially my first thought. I don't remember the other one that looked bad, but it was further in the motor.
I also thought of running a thicker oil from now on until the work gets done. Any thoughts on that?
The good news was that the cam lobes looked "normal". Now I am wondering what the crank bearings look like.

JeffK

I have no way to post the picture unless someone wants to do it for me.
According to what they told me, you have to pull the motor to do it right. I have no knowledge of this so I wouldn't do it myself.

Vomit God

Go here:
http://www.technologyorgasm.com/upload/

Next:
follow the instructions in the page.

Then:
give us the URL it gives you after the upload..

TobyZ28

You can email it to me at dbleosvn@dccnet.com and i can post it for you

bunker

ussually the very first one is the bad one, mainly I think cuz of the water pump gear adding to the already loaded bearing with chain assembly on it.

I changed mine out, I've done 2 cams swaps since, my bearing looks good.

Also, I found that after running Mobil 1 the bearing showed discoloration after a few hundred miles, I switched to Valvoline full sythetic which is true synthetic unlike Mobil 1 & after 5k the bearing looks untouched.

BTW its very easy to change the front bearing, I built my own tool & it took literally 10 mins with cleaning

JeffK

Sending it as I type this....Thanks.

96capricemgr

M1 5w30 can get pretty thin, IMHO it is not the great oil everyone seems to think it is. Not a bad one but not a wonder lube either.

The shop must want to pull the motor and rebearing the whole thing, that is the only explaination I see for that price. As for the front bearing seeing most wear, I am sure the WP/timing set are involved, but I would think that it is also last inline for oil.

whontime

If it is just the front bearing that is showing the majority of the wear then I would just change it without pulling the engine and finish up the cam swap. I haven't seen many well maintained chevy small blocks that needed a bearing change at 56K. I am sure that the $1000 price includes pulling the engine, but I still would have a very tough time paying that just for a bearing change. If it does come down to it, I would encourage you to tackle this job yourself if you have somewhere to work on the car. A ton of cash could be saved if you can do it. I understand that not everyone has the work area or desire to do these kinds of jobs, but doing your own work will save you a ton of money on things like this.

bunker

Like I said, I just changed the front bearing & no more wear, also all the other cams showed very little discoloring on the other cam journals after just changing the front one mainly because the cam doesn't dip into them as much anymore.