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I'm doing a cam, oil pump, heads etc upgrade and was wondering if I need to get new cam bearings or not. Did a search and didn't come up with much.
The motor had 69k on it. I'm leaving the stock bottom end in it. The bearings look decent, no grooves, just regular wear marks.
Does Advanced Auto or whoever rent out a micrometer that will check the bearing bore size and what kind of clearance should they have to the cam journals? Here are a few pics of the front and rear bearings and the cam journals of the cam I removed.
I would not replace those can bearings, they look normal. You'll run into more hassles if you try to replace them.
What you can do is get a 2-3" OD micrometer and make sure your new cam journals are the same size (or slightly smaller) as your old cam journals. The cam bearing clearance is very forgiving and not nearly as critical as the main and rod bearing clearances. Up to 0.006" is acceptable.
You would need a dial bore gauge to know the ID of the bearings, however I don't think this would be necessary as long as the above checks out.
You will likely not be able to rent a micrometer anywhere. Napa or Amazon is a good place to buy.
Thanks man; I just ordered the installation tools from SacCityCorvette that you recommended in another post on this forum. Awesome help on tech; much appreciated.
thanks for posting! i was wondering the same thing. however i already installed the cam, just haven't gotten to first startup yet. Getting cold feet hehe
I know this post is a bit old, but I have a similar situation. There seems to be a lot of buildup on these bearings. I am not sure if this is ok or not.
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Cam bearing question 
