Wiped Cam Lobe-What To Do Next

I wiped a cam load last Saturday. I left Byron after a couple of passes, and started hearing valve train noise about a mile later. Called the flat bed, and had her hauled home

Pulled valve covers and found one valve with way too much play. (No 3 Intake) Pulled rockers, not cracked. Push rod is straight as an arrow. Rockers back on, and bumped and made some measurements. Definitely wiped the lobe.

Cam is MP .557 solid flat tappet. Approximately 350 passes. I have 54 passes since we bought the car, and maybe 2000 miles. Previous owner raced the car, then retired it to some street driving before selling it.

Going to pull the intake this weekend and look the lifter over. Draining the oil so I can strain it. Fish the bottom of the pan with a magnet. Cut the filter and look for debris.

So, in your experiences is next? Tear the engine down for a thorough cleaning sounds logical.

Please let me what you have done if you had the same issue.

Thank you, John

You already have the answer OR toss another cam in it after a few flushes and wait till the bearings eat themselves up and then do what your already going to do now, freshen it up.

Good luck.

I would check the push rods over first....reason I say that is I had one that I thought I flattened 2 years ago, turned out to be the push rod cup had slight damage to it, which made the extra clearance and acted like a wiped lobe. On the other hand, if you pull the intake and find damaged lifters and hurt lobes, you will have to tear it completely down and inspect it, clean everything at a minimum.

When I lost a lobe on a cam back in 2008 the little metal shavings got into the piston skirts and made a mess....had to replace the pistons, bore the cylinders, new bearings, new crank.....pretty much everything on the bottom end.

What these guys said. I'd tear it down and clean everything. Probably has metal embedded in the bearings and possibly the skirts. Do it now before it eats up the crank and bores.
I'd also be going roller if it were mine.

Odd that it failed now after so many runs. Can't blame break-in. Soft metal, but after all this time? Oil?

That’s what was curious to me to Chip.... seem to hear this often with new cams, but not an ancient MP unit. Especially with quite a few hits/miles.

A complete tear-down now also means you won't be thinking about it...

When in doubt do every thing you can to make sure it is done correctly when done

Thanks guys. Time to start the process.

I will update when i get things apart.

Hopefully not too much carnage.

John

Always run oil with plenty of zinc. Flat tappets won’t run with out it!

Oil goes thru thru the pump unfiltered then to the filter, your filter will probably be ugly, as will the inside of the pump. Those tiny particles drop down onto the piston skirts below it and also get flung everywhere. If it was mine it would get fully torn down and gone thru. I spun a bearing once , I found metal particles inside the hyd. lifters.

Were you running a Jomar 100% No-Bypass filter? If not, the chances are pretty high that unfiltered oil was pumped through your oil galleys and into your bearings. I went through this with a Jomar when my T&D rollers disintegrated the needle bearings in the exhaust rockers. Thanks to the Jomar filter, there was no sign of contamination in the high pressure side of my oil system, but the motor still came apart for cleaning and inspection. I reused all the bottom end bearings, did a fresh hone and re-ringed it.. I went mechanical roller on rebuild.

No , it was a high mile street motor but there was maybe 800 miles since I did a cam change. I think it had a fram filter on it , I didn't know any better then .

Wow... not very often do you get a full internet consensus!!!!

I 100% agree... tear it down and inspect. I ate a cam a long time ago, and ended up having to bore it another .010" because there was so much metal in the skirts and they chewed the cylinders up.