front cam bearing....a tad big!

[39portlander]

A nice rainy evening, so out to the garage and get the new cam installed or so i thought. Center bearing went on easy with assembly lube but the front did not want to fit.

Grabbed the old cam and it would not fit on that either. Checked the old bearing and that one fits fine over the new cam, after a micrometer check the new bearing is +.015. Any one else have this as a problem.

I will drop the old and new pair off to my machine shop to have the new front ground down to match the old one. Another question about the cam, is there a torque for the cam gear retaining nut? The black service book just say's "run down camshaft gear lock nut, drawing nut down tightly". Any input would be great.

[Royce P]

I have had the same problem on the last three front cam bearings that I bought from Langs. They are too big by .015". I had to turn all of them down on the lathe. Also they are too long, and the thrust is critical to mesh the timing gears properly.


There is no torque specification for anything on a Model T Ford. Torque wrenches had not been invented yet. The cam nut is tightened until it is tight enough. You use good judgement, knowing that too much can snap off the cam and too little will come loose.

[39portlander]

Thanks for the input Royce, I did not even think about the evolution of the torque wrench in that era but maybe someone had compiled some torque specs that could be used on various areas of today's T's.

I will also contact the vendor about the size differences, I know it was several weeks on back order to get my bearings.

[jetmek]

They are probably made O/S because half the t blocks out there have badly worn cam bearing bores.

[29spcoupe]

I have NOS camshaft bearings. They have a little surface rust from being caught in the rain at Hershey. If anyone is interested, PM me. John

[39portlander]

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Originally Posted by jetmek

They are probably made O/S because half the t blocks out there have badly worn cam bearing bores.

The O.D. on both the center and front bearings were fine and very close to my old ones.

The length of the front was a shade long and just needed to be taken off the nose so the overall finished length would be 1 25/32.

John, If a future project is in need of cam bearings I will take you up on the offer.