In my rush to put the motor together ... (I had to move from the shop I was at so I only had a few days to get it together) I didn't check the end play of the cam... this is what happens when there is too much end play.. it should be like .005 to .010












Cylinder are scratched up a bit too so it's coming apart all the way...

Please check your camshaft end play after you install your cam gear...

 

***** man that sucks. the cylinders should only need a hone job which is good.

 

Every thing else looks good, need to hone it get some gaskets, cam and lifters, timing chain and gears...

going with this cam

LUNATI 351W SB FORD 280 BARE BONES HYD CAM & LIFTERS | eBay

 

That's obviously a bummer. But what could you have done had you checked and found too much end play? Was there too much side gap in the cam retainer? Are there some kind of shims or spacers you could have installed?

 

No they make like three different cam gears it all depends on what cam you have.. I'll take some pictures tomorrow and show ya..

 

OK all cams are the same it all depends what you have for a gear some gears (like mine have the spacer built on it) and some don't. The gears that don't have the spacer built into it you have to use the (C) shaped washer that fits the cam... see pics below... it's the washer or built in spacer on the gear the makes the end play with the retainer..



here is the spacer on the cam half way on it





here's the spacer all ready on the gear







way to much end play I would say....





It's been told to me 1000 times "slow down boy..."

 

> It's been told to me 1000 times "slow down boy..."

Are you saying haste makes waste?

I have never seen a separate spacer for the two cam gears that I've changed before. I think they were both from timing sets made by Milodon, and must have had the proper spacer formed as part of the gear hub.

 

Ya when I put it together I should have removed the (C) shaped spacer off the cam, I never looked at it. I had it reground to 270H specs and slammed it in...

 

I did the exact same thing to a 289 many moons ago. I installed a new timing chain and gears and used the integral spacer type gear and never took the original separate spacer off. It actually ran really good, never made any noise, and stayed together for 1000 miles or so. One night it just died on me on the way home from work. The distributor was several teeth off. All the distributor and cam gear teeth were worn out from the misalignment. Sometimes you've got to learn lessons the hard way.