Cam Wear

[FoxMustangLvr]

Low mile (75k) 90' LX 5.0 with oil sludge caked everywhere. No doubt oil change intervals were exceeded by previous owner and likely many short trips around town on the car. What do you think about the cam lobe wear? I will be pulling a couple crank bearing caps shortly.

 

[A5literMan]

Looks excessive to me. I agree on probable causes. When I pulled the stock cam out of mine years ago it didn't have those wear marks and the present cam had 0 wear marks(but only had about 5k miles on it). I definitely would be looking at the bearings etc. Since you are tearing into it, (obviously if the bearings look bad) you may just want to overhaul the motor i.e. rings,bearings,timing chain,cam,etc. etc. That picture doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling...

Or don't worry about it (cam) and drive it as is. Unless it's flattened the lobes significantly(highly unlikely) it should continue to operate as normal. I just think the po didn't maintain the motor properly and there may be some more hidden "fun" you will find.

 

[mikestang63]

time for a rebuild imo

 

[GroverDill]

Ugh, that looks pretty worn to me.

 

[Mustang5L5]

Maybe it's because I'm looking on my phone, but I don't necessarily see wear. I see that typical orange staining of a motor that has sat or never gotten really hot, and then where the rollers have worn that light coating away.

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

Main caps look good which is a big relief. Lobes on the cam do seem to have a little wear but not bad enough for me to replace it. I agree that it doesn't look the best but I don't have the budget for a real rebuild right now so I'm just slapping it back together. It ran perfectly before anyways.

Thanks for the input guys.

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

Maybe it's because I'm looking on my phone, but I don't necessarily see wear. I see that typical orange staining of a motor that has sat or never gotten really hot, and then where the rollers have worn that light coating away.

I kind of agree with you but I'm a little concerned about the uneven pattern of wear from the roller lifters. O'well, no money right now for a bunch of new parts unless I find a stack of hundred dollar bills.