R53 long story short.
I Installed a rebuilt cylinder head and shortly after that the engine locked up and sent tiny bits of metal through my baby . I recently picked up a used engine that has an obvious valve stem oil seal leaking in cylinder 4 exhaust . I'm thinking I'd rather use the rebuilt head if it's still usable .

Here are some pics if the cam and upper and lower journals . Scratches on lower and cam seem to be superficial . Can someone with more knowledge than me please advise

Lower

Cam


Upper , discolored but don't feel like high spots

 

Nope. Looks like oil starvation. You install a new cam. Going to do the same thing.

 

I see . So heads toast . 🥺

 

No the head is no good. The journal’s are bad. If you put in a new cam. It going to tear up the cam. You may want to inspect the rod bearings. I think you are going to find them in the same condition. Along with the mains.

 

Engines locked up solid so bottom end is trash

 

So i guess im using the head on the engine i bought . By any chance do you know of a valve spring compressor that I can use to change the valve stem seal without removing the head

 

Nope. Have to remove the head.

 

This looks like it might work . What do you think. 50$ on amazon

 

The valve will fall into the cylinder.

 

It looks pretty bad on pictures, but! I'd try to polish both - cam journals and cam seats / caps and would measure the gap using plastigauge. If it is way out of spec - then yeah, it is a waste. Note, it is kinda fine to have some groves on seats/caps and cam journals; the main target for polishing is to remove any protruding material, which will scratch the mating surface.

 

Sounds like a good plan . Thanks. Any suggestion on how to go about polishing it .

 

The trick is to coil rope into the cylinder through the spark plug hole, then turn the crank to lift the rope into the valves. Then use the tool and the valve stays put.