A new cam for the Tempest and a nasty surprise.
My ‘68 Tempest has had clicking lifters for the couple years that I have owned it. Not a big deal, but I hooked up an oil pressure gauge and saw that the oil pressure was actually pretty good. That meant that the lifter problem was either a worn valve train part or clogged hydraulic lifters. I found a new cam (mellings) on ebay for $92 and thought it would be a quick fix. Unfortunately, when I pulled the cam, I found this:
The cam bearings were shot, several had pieces flaking off. This was a Friday night, nobody local had cam bearings for pontiac and it was going to rain the next week, so I didn’t want to take the Harley to work. So I ordered some bearings from summit (and pushrods and rockers, might as well make a clean sweep) and rushed to put the ‘55 back together before monday (that’s a future post). The other problem was that I had always had cam bearings replaced when I got an engine rebuilt, so I didn’t have a puller. Next time I’ll show how I built a cam bearing installation tool and put the engine back together.
