Damage to cam journal - what do you think (pic)

Hi all.
81 550 LTD. 6k miles. I just nabbed it as a suitable motor donor to my 82 550. I had the bike running for about 3 min, ran fine. I checked the valve clearances, and although they all had a gap of some sort, almost all 8 of them were out of tolerance or right at the lower limit. So I pulled the cams out. Everything looked fantastic except for the one side of the journal on #2. As you can see from the pic, the lip has been cracked off on the vertical portions. The cap is fine, as is the cam. The actual mating surface is as smooth as can be. I can only think of two things that happened: 1. Crappy factor job to start with 2. Someone had the cam crooked when putting it in and forced it or torqued it down and the lip on the cam damaged the journal. At any rate, I'm really really hoping I can just smooth out the rough edges and run it. What do you guys think? BTW - no other damage to be seen and no aluminum pieces laying around. Bike made good compressions (about 135psi) on all 4 cylinders while very cold and out of spec valve shims. My thread about this bike can be found here:
www.kzrider.com/forum/2-engine/596518-gr...barn-find-81-550-ltd

I'll be able to get a few more pics in a few days. I measured all my shims to see what I had in there (a lot of 2.5 and 2.45's, makes me think its never been looked at) but I stupidly forgot to write down two of them, so I'll have to go back in there to measure those before I get some shims.

Also - where do you guys get shims? I'd like to not order a pack of 5 of them, unless I can use all 5 of those sizes...there used to be a shop by me that would trade you shims + a few bucks, but I'm guessing he no longer owns a lot of the smaller sizes and has a lot of larger ones - I'm guessing there isn't a big market for bigger shims - haha.

Thanks,
Andy

Try jetsrus on line. I don't see what damage you're talking about.
Steve

Any marks on the camshaft bearing surface? If not, don't touch a thing. Put it back together.

The defect may have been in the casting before the journals where machined, completely harmless.

I added some arrows to show the damage. its right on the outter edge...the pic makes it look a little worse than what it was. At first I was like "OH COME ON!" then I thought, "eh, that's not too bad, no oil starvation". Then I went back to "WHAT THE #$)%#$?". Then I calmed back down and thought, "eh, its a parts bike for 300, win some lose some". Now I'm sort of thinking it'll be ok, but wanted to blow it past you guys.

I did that on mine. The cam was not in the right place and I caught it before I had major damage. No biggie, SHIP IT.
Steve

Sorry, SHIP it?

Tyler - when you say surface I'm not sure which surface you're referring to, but there are no marks at all on the cam (which I'm not surprised...aluminum vs hardened steel isn't much of a competition) and there are also 0 marks on the aluminum surfaces (both the head and the cap).

From what I can tell, I don't think this came from the factory like this - it looks like it was broken off at some point. But maybe there was a defect in the casting that caused this area to be weak. I can't for sure say anyone has ever cracked this open before and had the cams out - they sure as heck didn't adjust the valves, but the gasket did not stick at all, so makes me think its not original. Also there was a white paint pen marks on the cam and cam chain, as if someone marked it before disassembly, but I'm not sure if they would do that at the factory.

If it broke off then the pieces are still in the engine somewhere, and that is a real problem, have you pulled the oil pan?

Nope, have not pulled the pan yet. Literally, I got the bike home, checked compression, put my carbs from my good bike on, started it for a few minutes to confirm it'd run, then checked valve clearances and found this. Was REALLY hoping to NOT take the oil pan off but I'll have to now. I took the pan off my 80 750 that I sold and spent literally the entire afternoon scraping the darn gasket off, only to then pinch oil pressure wire and wreck my new oil pan gasket...

I've dealt with aluminum bits in my other 550 motor when I melted a hole in the piston. I dropped the pan, tried to wash the motor out with some oil based solvents (I think I used a lot of pb blaster or kerosean) and put the pan back on and it was fine. Hopefully this one will be that easy.

Ship it meant it's good to go. I wouldn't worry about a few aluminum pieces in the pan. I don't think there are. If there were, they would likely still be trapped up there. The strainer screen would prevent them from going into the pump, then they would then have to get past the filter. I use diesel to flush my motors.
Steve

Good point swest - I doubt that the cam area is FLOODED with oil and if it broke off, it should be trapped between 1 and 2 exhaust because the oil return oil is the cam chain channel.

They can be ground up by the action of the cam. Still you would see something.
Steve

My guess is someone had some issues getting the cam in, forced it, then said "oh shit" then picked out the pieces, and threw it together.

In all reality, even if this head is shot, I can re-coup my $300 out of this bike. Between the switches, gauges, tank, seat, fenders, rims etc I'll at least be even. Not to mention I'm going to steal the chain guard, tail light, left and right switches, speedo and rear brake lever and rod for my ride. Plus the frame does have a title. So when I'm all done, I'll hopefully have my bike with this motor and a few parts and my not so good parts on this one. I'll have a really nice bike (mine) and an ok, complete, running alright titled bike I can keep or flip. I holed a piston a few years back on my motor. It has about 10 lower compression now, but runs ok once piping hot. Cold it's just not that great. Uses some oil too, but runs fine. Couldn't balance the carbs in the truest sense because #2 pulled less vac, so I balanced them, then adjusted #2 by himself to get the smoothest running possible.