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My car had absolutely no sound on startup.
It was when the engine warmed up and I would drive that I would hear a constant tick tick tick the engine. Opening the hood of the engine I can isolate it to the driver side.
So I took it upon myself to do the cam bucket, and phaser job thinking that was it.
I unscrewed the cylinder head cover, and to my shock I saw a camshaft bridge bolt wiggling its way out! I knew I had to go deep to inspect all the buckets and the cam lobes and find out if they were ok and find out where the heck I’m getting this tap, tap, tap tap tap while the engine is running.
I removed everything and inspected my SLS black series buckets and they look brand new (placed those 10 years ago when I upgraded head bolts). took some pictures of my lobes and wanted to get your guys opinion. Personally I still think they look great, but I’m not sure exactly if the sound was from the loose camshaft bridge bolt or if my cam lobes are going bad. I inspected everything and there’s no damage to the buckets so there should be no damage to the lobes?
Please give me your wisdom. I have brand new camshaft sitting in a box in my garage, but I don’t think I need to drop those in. I’m just nervous to button everything up and wish I would’ve changed the camshafts…. It’s also not the cam phasers as they are tight.
thanks…
Last edited by ZephyrAMG; Nov 8, 2024 at 01:10 AM.
Only a few lobes look to have minor visual signs of wear at all (see picture below). They'll look like a small layer peeled off/discoloration. The best test for this is to run your finger nail across them. If it glides you're good. If it feels like a nail file or catches at all it's an issue, and will likely be wearing into the lifter aswell. I doubt any of these lobes would cause any noise as they still look great. Look closely at the camshaft bearing surfaces especially that front one that had the loose bolt. In some of the pictures the bearing surface looks to be sort of matte. Should be almost a mirror finish like the lobes.
best test is the fingernail. My lobes and bucket surfaces are glass smooth and my fingernail glides over the surfaces of all the lobes…
But what about the shine? Do you know if the intake or exhaust cam gets the worst beat down? I know it’s the furthest lobe back that gets the least oil and most wear. I do have to admit that upon very, very close inspection I can see micro pitting at the very tip of the lobe, which is an indicator of poor metallurgy…
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