Hi
I just got hold of a second hand cam that is going to be re profiled. What wear must I be looking at that might make the cam useless. Only wear that looks worrying is on that gear that drives the distributor. It has small wear marks on the teeth. Is this normal?

Sure, a little wear is normal. On the pump and dizzie drive gears.

Best person to tell would be the cam grinder? Just be sure to have the tappets refaced at the same time.

Hi. I read a couple of times about this. Can you please explain what is done?
I spoke to Rezlo also about this and other South African members and they say I am going to struggle finding someone in SA doing it correctly. Better to just make sure existing tappets are clean with no pit marks and reuse them as is.Any advice?

The tappets are faced to ensure they meet flat/flush/uniform with the cam lobe.

You run the risk of the old tappets prematurely wearing the cam lobes to their (the tappets) existing profile. Tappets eventually match the lobes after some time.

Once you put a tappet that has been worn in on it's lobe onto a new lobe that hasn't been run in you'll run the risk of additional wear on both components (lobe and tappet).

As for checking flatness and applying that then perhaps that can be done, I'm not sure. But if you have a heap of them and that's all you got then I suppose you have no option.

I think the tappets wear in a concave manner, but I suppose it all differs.

always have the lifters re radiused on a new reground cam. if the lifters dont have the correct radius they will not rotate and the cam will not last a long time.cams are ground with a tapper & lifters have a radius to allow rotation,no rotation cam will wear very quickly .valve spring also play part in all this.get good springs too.cheers ps if the cam has been ground before u may not be able to do it again depends on base circle size.

Just an update on the lifters matter. I spoke to the guy at the cam shop who will be doing the re profile. He said I don't have to worry he has a special machine that is used to specifically do the followers. He explained to me the same that you guys said about the followers and said I don't have to worry he has done lots of Ford V6 engines that the guys wanted cams re profiled and obviously the follower refaced as well for it.

Oh dear, maybe re-facing isn't the term at all. Sorry about that.

When you have the rocker cover off with the engine running the push-rods turn or spin I think this is the rotation that bige is telling you about.