Surface corrosion on cam lobes

[DSMTyson]

Well, I blew my head gasket about 3 weeks ago and it has been sitting for 2 weeks with all the fluids drained out. I was taking everything off the motor exept the stuff on the timing side today, and I pulled the valve cover off to find that vvvvvv..

There is some surface corrosion on a the majority of the cam lobes, and there a a couple others that are perfectly fine.

What do you guys/gals suggest I do about this? The first pic is before I wiped a lot of the nastyness off. Thats how I found it when I pulled off the VC. The last pic is after I wiped it off.

 

[VTEC_THIS]

I have to be honest, in the first picture the camshafts looked pretty rough. In the later pictures though it looks like you got a lot of the bumpy rust off (if that makes sense?) and they look smoother now. It is a little tough to tell from the pictures though.

It's difficult to give a definite answer without seeing and being able to feel the camshafts in person but if it's only surface rust you can polish it out using an emery cloth, steel wool or a green scrubbing pad (like a Scotch-Brite pad). If the camshafts are pitted because of the rust though I wouldn't recommend running them how they are. At the very least, they would need to be brought to a machine shop and have them machined and polished.

 

[3kgt2nv]

If they are stock cams I would replace them. If they are after market take to a machine shop and have them polished and checked for evenness of the lobes

 

[vinnio]

You could probably try to clean it up yourself with soft polishing paper but you really should have a dial indicator if you try. In general, if a lobe is more than one thousandth (.001'') off from the rest, the cam should be replaced.

A machine shop will probably turn it as they polish it, just for evenness, but if it has pitting they will more than likely call it junk.

If they are stock, you can get them for pretty darn cheap, mostly from people who upgraded. Shoot, I gave my used pair to a friend for free even.

 

[DSMTyson]

Thanks for the replys. They are Delta 272's, and I don't feel like spending 250 bucks on another set, considering I just spent 240 bucks for a rebuilt HX35 2 days ago. But, I'll take them over to a machine shop and see what they think about it. But if I have to replace them, I will.

 

[Bud92gsx]

I would also try to find why you have moisture in the head, causing the cams to rust..

 

[DSMTyson]

It may be a combination of the ridiculous amount of humidity in southern Louisiana(90-100% where i live). And the fact that it has been sitting ever since I drained the oil/coolant mixture out of it b/c of the blown head gasket.

So maybe it had traces of coolant on those lobes?....IDK

 

[XiKeiyaZI]

I would also try to find why you have moisture in the head, causing the cams to rust..

Read the first post, please.

That's a LOT of corrosion for a few weeks.

 

[Bud92gsx]

Ya sorry I kinda skipped over the first sentance to look at the pics..Now I understand..

That sucks..

 

[XiKeiyaZI]

For the record - If you did mix coolant with oil that badly, then when you drained the fluids and let it sit for that long, you likely accumulated a sort of crust over the cam lobes due to the moisture/droplets coagulating on the cam lobes from the coolant.

How hard is it to rub the rust off?

 

[Guilty1s]

Ah.. i had coolent mix from a blown turbo and mine looked just similar. I green padded with wd40, wet sanded, and then took them to be polished but he said that it was just a hair to deep to fully polish out. I mean they are smooth and everything, dont catch a finger nail, but they still have pitting. I am not using them though

Try cleaning with some seafoam. It eats rust away!

 

[DSMTyson]

Well I soaked the cam lobes with some of my motor oil and started to scrub with a scotch brite pad and it came off. It did leave stains on the cam lobes though. But i didn't scrub for very long. My scotch brite pad was pretty torn up. So i gotta get a new one.

I'll try some seafoam to get the stains out and wet sand with some very fine sand paper and see what happens.

I'll post pics in a few minutes.

Here they are.
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Well everybody, it looks like I have a case of pitting on my hands. Which is hard to believe b/c it happened in 3 weeks...

Started wet sanding with some WD40, and the more of the stain I got out, the more I could see the fact that there is pitting. If I run my finger nail across I can feel it.

Can I use the cams until I get a new set?

Or should i say, Will I break or wear out anything by using them for about a month? Its not terribly bad as far as pitting goes, i've seen people drive on worse. But I would much rather just replace the cams.
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[Guilty1s]

They look better then mine turned out. About running them, I can't see how it would hurt anything. It's not like a bearing that has something the exact same roundness and size precisely spinning in it. Maybe it makes your valve open .001 of an inch less. No biggie. The metal is still there and still strong. I would say it's not recommended but that is my logical (non professional) reasoning behind why I wouldn't mind running them for just a bit. Only reason I didn't run mine was because it was a good reason to get something better and I wanted to do timing with the engine outside the car and not twice before i drop it in.