72 K10 350 skips after warmup

[57taskforce]

Unfortunately this is a really common thing these days. I feel your pain. Dont fall for the temptation to just swap the cam and lifters again. All that metal is going to really bone you if you don’t tear it down and do a full rebuild, at this point the block, crank, rods, etc are likely still salvageable. If you don’t tear it down and clean it up that isn’t going to be the case.

[clyde72]

yep, unfortunately this is it for this motor, I,m not using up any more hobby time on it, as I mentioned above I have a 5.3 Ls donor waiting, I just wanted to buy some time with the 350...ended up wasting time and $$ that could have gone into the LS.....
I will say part of me wanted to keep it original, but that parts gone now.

[Dashman]

Sorry that happened to you. Did you also change the cam bearings? Did you know if the oil passages were in alignment? Did you use a cam lube? The engine is not scrap because it has an oil pick up screen and a filter.

[Accelo]

I suggest never rebuilding any motor without retrofitting it over to rollers. Just not worth the hassles of doing it twice. I have heard all kinds of reasons for the cam failures. The cause doesn't matter. Only think you need to know the cam/lifters will fail.

Helped my friend with the same issue. Difficult to impossible to get all the debris out of the motor without a complete teardown and hot tank with new bearings.

I have changed my thought to; Go roller or go home.

[clyde72]

just an update.. dont judge, I know its not the right move ...but, considering I have another motor waiting and doing another cam would be a bad idea due to the metal in the motor and the possibility of something similar happening, and I really, really, did not want to do what i just finished or rebuild it I said wtf, the next bolts to come out of this motor are the motor mounts when I throw it away.. we had/have a couple vintage camper rallies planned for the summer which is why I wanted it running, sooo, I poured some cheap 10/30 down the valley with the drain plug out, i then assembly lubed up an old lifter and dropped it in the hole. filled it with more cheap 10 /30, started it, shut it off after 30 seconds and changed the oil/filter to 20/50 race oil with a quart of Lucas gooey stuff, its running on 8, towed the 4000 lb camper to a rally in Maine and back, 400 miles, did as good as any other tree fiddy Ive had in the past.. 800 miles so far and no skip or ticking or loss of oil pressure, Ill have to say I`m going to get my summer out of it ... at this point if it eats another lifter Ill take the pushrod out and snug up the rocker and run `er on seven..the old 350 is a fighter.

[dmjlambert]

I judge you made the right move. :-)
This thread has been interesting to watch. Let us know how it goes over the rest of the summer!

[1970cstblazer]

I'd done the same thing at this point.

[clyde72]

Loaded up and headed for Maine with our ‘74 Shasta