What are these grinding marks on my cam cover?

I had purchased some cam cover ends months ago for my 79 1000 LTD, and decided to finally install them today. Upon removing the cam cover, I found that someone had ground some "+" shaped marks off. I'm guessing maybe someone installed some bigger cams or something, but I'm not sure. Is there any way to identify what cams are in my bike? I need to order a new gasket before I replace the cover, so I will have it off for a few days.

Here is one of the pics I took of the grinding marks

You can measure your cams to see how much lift they've got--if you have a micrometer. Measure the lobe from side-to-side near the center of the shaft axis. Then measure the lobe top-to-bottom (the long axis). Compare the two measurements. Cam lift is usually measured in inches. So a "410 cam" has .410" of lift (if I remember right--someone correct me if I'm wrong).

I don't know what the specs are for the stock cams on your bike, but I'm guessing they were probably in the neighborhood of .330". If your measurement comes out significantly higher than that (say--.375"+), then you likely have aftermarket cams.

If you can post pics here, we have a lot of cam experts that may be able to ID them. Also, if there are any numbers/letters stamped on the shaft, that may help ID them too.

Thanks for the info, unfortunately I dont think I have anything big enough to measure my cams. I will take a picture of them tomorrow, but I didn't see any obvious casting numbers that would help identify them. I would almost think they would be bigger, unless someone bought this cam cover from another bike. It is chromed, and I'm not so sure stock ones came that way.

Doesn't look like many miles have been logged since that grinding was done. Also doesn't look like any additional clearance was achieved.

KZCSI

They definitely didn't do a very good job on it. I may or may not grind it out a little more before I install the new gasket, depending on if I find some info on the cams or not. I bought the bike a little over a year ago, and the guy I bought it from had it for about 4-5, and he said he never did anything besides maintenance on it.

If the cams have CWC cast into them, then they are aftermarket billets.

Jay

Well I actually did have a dial indicator and measured the lobes on the cams. It looks like the lift is .308, as the measurements were 1.12 and 1.428. Looks like they are far from being being aftermarket :lol: