Camshaft lobe wear

[HiSPL]

I had the bomber apart tonight doing a valve adjustment when I noticed some weird colors on my exhaust cam and wanted to ask the experts' opinion... My bike is a 16 valver and has the cam followers with 2 small pads on each follower instead of one big pad. This in turn causes 2 polished stripes to show on the cam lobe. However, the exhaust cam has some places where the lobe looks more like polished brass than the polished chrome appearance I think it should have.. These brassy looking spots are not evenly placed around the lobe either which really worries me. This seems to have happened on all 4 lobes of the exhaust cam. Does this seem normal?

Any comments?
Is my cam toast?
Will Batman save Robin again?


TIA

[Hap Call]

Tim,

I have the same thing on my 1100...been that way for years. I'm not sure what causes it. Because it is that brass color and my cams are not made out of brass I figured that it was a kind of "stain". I know that does not answer your question but maybe it will give you some comfort knowing you're not the only one on this ship...of course the ship may still be sinking... 8O

Hap

[HiSPL]

Thanks Hap, thats a load off my mind....

Interesting note; The 82 head I have is different than my 81. The bolts for the cam cover are in different places and the cam followers have one large pad each.... Kinda sucks because I had planned on polishing the 82 cam cover and putting it on the 81.

I guess I'll be going through the 82 head completely then doing a swap. I wonder if it has hotter cams? It seemed much stronger when it was running......... ..........

[Anonymous]

I just yanked the valve cover off of mine to adjust the valves and I found that I've got the single pads just like my 400. It is motor number GS110X-131815 which is a fairly late model as it has all of the "better" factory mods such as cam sprocket bolts and clutch basket. Too bad it doesn't have a 24 bolt cover.

The casting of the tensioner and valve cover were crap compared to my 400 though. Very porous and cracking.... :?

Cheers, Steve

[AOD]

i think it might be caused by heat....like how chrome discolors when it gets too hot.

just a thought.

~Adam