G'day Folks,

I'm in the middle of pulling the engine of my W123 1981 300D OM617 motor apart and I noticed a possible problem with the camshaft.

Can any one advise whether remedial work is required for the following faults.

(My Haynes manual says this sort of thing could be a problem - but it doesn't give a remedy)

The problem I have is that the car has probably sat for ages doing nothing so...

1) Some of the camshaft lobes are discoloured - grey muck on the surface
2) There are specs of rust in the polished lobe surfaces
3) Uneven wearing of the cam lobe followers - when you adjust the valves the gap can be "good" on one side of the contact between follower and lobe, but "bad" on the other side.

I've taken some pictures of the camshaft - I'm hoping the eagle eyed here can see what I mean.

I've got a polishing wheel and compound etc so I could in principle make the camshaft look a lot better - but I don't know whether that would actually help (with any possible problem that I may have).

As usual any help will be greatly appreciated - thanks in advance.

Attached Thumbnails

     

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!