cam bearings

[zooguy]

so my biggest hesitation with stabbing my cam is that i want to also replace cam bearings ... is this possible with the motor still in the car? ... i have pulled the cam out and put it back in with plenty of room before ...so can this be done?

i called a machine shop and they said it has to out of the car and the crank out.

[zooguy]

okay let me rephrase this

i have been wanting to do the cam for a while and thought that you NEEDED to do cam bearings at the same time.

[adam85]

You dont need to do new bearings if they look good yet. Installing bearings is usually the first thing done when assembling a new engine.
You need to be able to get through the front and the rear of the engine with the installer to put the bearings in correctly. It is very easy to damage them if you dont have a lot of experience with using the installer. With all that said i put my first cam in with150k on my stock lt1 and the bearings still looked fine. I have done quite a few more as well.

[waltsfastz]

No, It can not be done int he car. they can be put in with the rotating assy in. Not very easy but can be done

[BALLSS]

OP

as noted you can not swap cam bearings with motor in car.

it is also very hard, without a camera scope, to see what condition cam bearings are in, especially with motor in car. Engines above 150k...IMHO I would pull motor, polish crank, new bearings for cam , crank, rods, hone, new rings and go.

can you get away with just stabbing in a cam, yeah. Doing the job properly and CLEAN will have a great influence on how the motor lasts. Making a high mileage motor now spin to 6400 rpm, or more, because a cam/heads and other mods can be bolted in/on often results in spun bearings of some form on high mileage motors. These motors are 20 years old now...