When I was given my donor, it had a very slight tick from the engine, nothing much but you could detect it. It also burned a little oil when cold which I put down to stem seals.

Today I pulled the head to change the stem seals and generally take a look at the general engine health. I noticed that one of the cam lobes was a little worn.

A question for the kanicks, is this wear critical, I can put up with a minor tick but not a busted engine. I remember that the crossflows had a case hardened cam which wore well until you wore through the case and then it stripped out in a matter of miles, but the pinto cam is a little new to me (apart from changing the spray rail at regular intervals)
Rescued attachment Camlobe.JPG

I bought a new standard cam for mine, it came with followers, spray bar and head gasket set complete for under £40 with the discount we get but it would not have been too much full price. It's easy to swap as well so it's not worth leaving the old one in.

yours, Pete.

agree, but, if i was changing cam i would go for a "x drilled" one and do away with the spray bar, pinto cams have a hard life.

Remember I am a bodywork man, what is a x drilled cam and where do I get one from, and how much?

The cams are so easy to replace, I am half tempted to leave it in and the see if a slightly warmer cam would be an advantage after driving it for a while

Were they not called fluted cams or am i just dreaming again.

In other words instead of spray bar the oil was fed through the cam lobes for better oiling ?

The cam in the piccy is brown bread mate, and quite probably the the rocker it is sitting on too.

I dont think you would be expecting sudden terminal engine failure if you initially got the car on the road with this cam, but what you will be doing is filling the lubrication system with unwanted metal particles. Also, as the cam comes out of the head backwards (i.e. slides out of the head flywheel end), according to how much room is available, you may find that to change the cam at a later date would mean having to take the head off again.
The above is only a possibilty, as there *may* be room on your car to actually facilitate a cam swap without further dismantling. Just trying to give you the pros and cons mate.....

Mark,

The cam on mine was similar. In fact when I bought the donor it was only firing on 3 pots as one of the rockers had fallen off due to excessive tappet clearance. I reset the tappets and kept the original cam for about 4 weeks, then fitted a Kent FR34 kit.

The life of the new cam is heavily influeneced by the first 20 minutes or so of running. What you don't want is to fit a new cam then spend 30 minutes cranking it over because it won't start. For this reason I'd recommend that you stick with the cam until starting and holding 2500 rpm for 20 minutes is a no risk affair.

Cheers,

Colin

Good advice, I will get everything going and then see what gives. The old sierra was driving well before the strip down, so I expect that it will run OK in its new home. I don't want to trying to get the engine started for the first time with a brand new cam installed.