Cam Swap

After my unsuccessful new lifters, it was time to swap out the cam and install new lifters again. Here’s a quick write up and pictures of my cam swap.

The 360 is pretty busy with all the accessories mounted to the front of the block. I removed the grill, condenser, radiator, clutch fan, AC compressor, alternator, PS pump, pulleys, water pump, harmonic balancer, distributor / wires, timing chain cover, intake and valve covers. There was nothing terribly exciting about removing all this but this took place over a couple days due to time and weather constraints. The good thing about removing the radiator and all the accessories on the front of the block at the same time is that there is enough room to actually stand in the engine compartment! This helps when you have to remove the intake and need to access all the bolts on the valve cover and also helps when removing & installing lifters.

Here I set the dot the on timing chain gears for TDC. You can see the key on the crank is at about 2 o’clock.

The chain and gears have been removed and I’m getting ready to remove the old cam.

The rockers, rods, lifters and cam have been removed and the new cam is installed. I used bolt at the end of the cam to “ease” it into place.

From Al Johnson ifsja.org: 
On thing to be sure of is the oil passage inside the new cam sprocket bore, opposite the keyway, is open all the way through. Some cam sprockets (Dynagear made, maybe others) have the oil passage blocked in the center, due to a casting defect. Then no oil would go to the chain or the fuel pump cam or the distributor drive gears. The bore is in the center for the camshaft. In a correctly made cam sprocket, there will be a square slot (keyway) running the length of the bore. Exactly opposite the keyway should be a half-round slot running the length of the bore. This is the oil passage. It supplies pressurized oil to the front face of the cam sprocket, to be slung outward for chain oil, and to the matching oil passage inside the bore of the fuel pump cam, and then to the distributor drive gear, which has holes to let the oil out for distributor gear lube. Looks like that oil would also spray all over inside the timing cover while the dizzy drive gear spins, giving a nice oil bath to everything. Anyway, this casting defect is bad news so make sure you have the oil passage all the way thru the cam sprocket bore.

Here the new cam, lifters and (new from the previous installing the lifters a few months ago) rods and rockers.

Here is the new double roller chain and gears installed.

And this is process of assembling everything; the valley pan is also from doing the lifters previously.

There are several new gaskets that must be replaced including the valley pan, valve covers, crank seal, timing chain cover, water pump, oil pump and I dropped the oil pan and replacing that gasket as well. I had trouble seating the timing chain cover so I had to drop the oil pan. This is a pain because I have to unbolt the exhaust “Y” pipe from the manifolds in order to drop the pan but I also replaced the rear main seal. I ended up thoroughly cleaning the pan and painted it and inspected the sump screen while I was there.

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