Cam and Lifter failure

[Dusty]

Since I know a couple of techs, including one who owns his own business, I've inquired about this type of failure on 5.7 motors. They all report having seen this problem but not in any significant quantity. I asked my local dealer's parts manager once and he informed me that national monthly usage of cams for 5.7 motors were 36 per month (this would've been late summer this year) for USA and Canada. When you consider there are roughly 6-7 million 5.7 Hemi truck motors in use every day, even double the monthly usage is a small percentage.

I know five other Hemi owners at the moment and I know of only two camshaft failures in the past four years: my sister's 2013 Buick V6 at 31,000 miles, and a neighbor's Colorado V6 pickup.

Regards,
Dusty
2019 Ram 1500 Billet Silver Laramie Quad Cab 2WD, 5.7 Hemi, 8HP75, 3.21 axle, 33 gallon fuel tank, factory dual exhaust, 18” wheels. Build date: 17 July 2018. Now at: 027277 miles.

 

[Fuel35 67]

I did a 6.1 Hemi swap into a 67’ Belvedere and the guy that sold my friend the engine said it was rebuilt. Had receipts for parts.

I swapped the LA 318 out and got the 6.1 fired up. Had the “tick”.
Pulled the heads, and I find a lifter bore damaged, bore scope that particular bore, cam lobe is shot!

Lifter looks great. Pulled the cam, found 2 lobes worn. Bought new cam and lifters (these have the roller oiling hole), new hg’s, and get it all together, also replaced the timing gears/chain. Fired it up, ticking was gone.

 

[CVX20]

I did a 6.1 Hemi swap into a 67’ Belvedere and the guy that sold my friend the engine said it was rebuilt. Had receipts for parts.

I swapped the LA 318 out and got the 6.1 fired up. Had the “tick”.
Pulled the heads, and I find a lifter bore damaged, bore scope that particular bore, cam lobe is shot!

Lifter looks great. Pulled the cam, found 2 lobes worn. Bought new cam and lifters (these have the roller oiling hole), new hg’s, and get it all together, also replaced the timing gears/chain. Fired it up, ticking was gone.

View attachment 189695

View attachment 189696

No need for that with the technology we have now.

 

[Hemi 808]

Could MDS reaction be an indication of cam/lifter condition?

Bought a used 2015 Sport from a dealer 6 months ago. When I test drove it, it goes into MDS smooth but kicks out kinda hard. At first, I thought the transmission was upshifting to the next gear. MDS is new to me. Fast forward to today and reading on all the failures got me worried. Dumped the dealer oil and running Redline 5-30 and Royal Purple 10-48. Running a lot smoother and quieter now but I can still feel a slight kick at slower speeds like 30mph. Hardly feel any kick or no kick at freeway speeds. I know a lot of you disable MDS but I plan to keep it

 

[jettajam1]

I have my meticulously maintained 2012 Ram with 118k miles in the shop now having the cam and lifters replaced. Cylinder 5 misfire code led me down the major repair path and I believe it’s due to the lifter roller bearings failing in some capacity. Technician told me he’s had 4 trucks in the last couple of months (all with relatively low miles 90k-120k) all with lifter failures.

Design issue?


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[NOV87]

Sorry to hear that...this really blows. I'd say that is a design issue. How much are they charging you and are you doing OEM?
Good luck with it bud.

 

[jettajam1]

Sorry to hear that...this really blows. I'd say that is a design issue. How much are they charging you and are you doing OEM?
Good luck with it bud.

Yeah, blows for sure. Having it done for 3800 (OEM) and they’re doing the exhaust manifold bolts as well. It sucks, but I’m really looking forward to having both of these very common problems fixed. FCA needs to get their **** together[emoji15]


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[Jtblackram]

Yeah, blows for sure. Having it done for 3800 (OEM) and they’re doing the exhaust manifold bolts as well. It sucks, but I’m really looking forward to having both of these very common problems fixed. FCA needs to get their **** together[emoji15]


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Ive heard that they use better parts these days, so with any luck we should all be ok going forward if the issue happens, or so ive heard

 

[jettajam1]

Quick update: I had called the shop to have them save the cam and failed lifter for me and this morning I went and picked it up. The lifter roller was completely seized and had literally worn the entire cam lobe away...crazy. Now I’m wondering where all that metal material may have gone[emoji15]. My assessment is that lifter failed awhile ago, probably while it was still under warranty, but the problem didn’t surface until the valve failed to open appropriately and threw the code. I wish there was a way to detect this problem sooner, rather then later.







Anyway, she’s all fixed up and running amazingly.


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[Cowboy Brick]

Every engine has potential issues. If someone built a perfect engine they would be smokin rich!
Just enjoy it until something happens and then fix it and enjoy it some more. No sense worrying about something that might not even happen.

Yeah, the perfect engine is called a cummins!

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Nod for 8 when they open the gate.
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[Tim Garceau]

Quick update: I had called the shop to have them save the cam and failed lifter for me and this morning I went and picked it up. The lifter roller was completely seized and had literally worn the entire cam lobe away...crazy. Now I’m wondering where all that metal material may have gone[emoji15]. My assessment is that lifter failed awhile ago, probably while it was still under warranty, but the problem didn’t surface until the valve failed to open appropriately and threw the code. I wish there was a way to detect this problem sooner, rather then later.







Anyway, she’s all fixed up and running amazingly.


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Unfortunate, sorry for your loss.

An oil analysis or cutting/inspecting your filter media at the first sign of non-exhaust related excessive valve train noise. It doesn’t take more than a couple hours once the roller completely seizes for both surfaces to start fighting each other. I have used an endoscope on the driver side through the oil fill because the intake manifold needs to come off to get the valve cover, passenger side valve cover is an easier out once the intake is gone to visually inspect rocker movement.

Rockwell Rc56-58 tested on the roller and cam lobes, longevity after seizure depends a lot on usage during as well as oil condition. I’ve witnessed 0.100”+ lobe loss without a misfire condition being initiated by the PCM, again seems to vary engine to engine.

 

[Phillip Dominguez]

I posted this under general discussion as I’m a noob here..

2012 1500 SLT 5.7L 186k
11/2018 misfire cylinder 3 took it in and shop said rings got stuck and couldn’t unsieze them.. opted for a used replacement with supposedly 62k out of a 2015.. 7 months later 5/2019 I get an intermittent CEL (goes away after few minutes) misfire in Cyl 5 I take it in and shop says can’t duplicate it.. 2 weeks later CEL misfire Cyl 5 stays on take it back in and roller stuck on lifter wipes out cam lobe.. they rebuild top under the warranty they gave me and 2 months later I get truck back. 5 months later 12/2019 Another CEL misfire Cyl 8 take it in and they say low compression in that cylinder but not sure why and out of warranty by a month (but they don’t care that that had my truck for 2 months fixing it) so they won’t cover it.. not even 10k on this rebuilt.. i work out deal with shop for them to find what’s wrong.. roller on Cyl 8 bad and wiped the cam out again.. so out of a used replacement with 62k and a rebuilt top half on top of that i only didn’t even get 20k miles driving out of them combined.. shop is trying to claim abuse caused this.. idk where to go from here.. will other shops be able to look at the motor torn apart and be able to see if anything was done wrong by the shop? Both of the rollers went bad around the same time frame and same miles.. I don’t understand that.