Okay to drive on a wiped cam. 5.7l hemi

[Arizona_928]

BIL wiped his cam and one lifter on his 13' hemi 2500.
Of course I laughed at him, but he asked for help. I have no desire to pull heads and the front end to replace a cam and lifters.

Will he trash the engine the engine if he drove it until the summer? He works at the mine so literally middle of nowhere.

[asphaltgambler]

The 5.7's apparently have an issue with lifters. It's more likely it broke rather than 'wiping' the cam lobe as they are roller lifters. There's certainly a huge risk of continuing to drive it with broken metal parts in the engine. He'll need to weigh the option of towing or driving and ruining the entire engine.

[LWJ]

Buddy just lost one. Word is nobody rebuilds. They replace. If so, drive it till it won't drive no mo. Then buy a new one.

Or, rebuild it. If so, I wouldn't drive.

[Alfasrule]

Glad my HEMI's don't have these issues.

[unclebilly]

Throw away garbage...

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Alfasrule

Glad my HEMI's don't have these issues.

Yep. The Hemi in my 911 flat 6 has some sweet 964 cams. No issues.

[rfuerst911sc]

A complete guess on my part , any chance switching to a high zinc/phosphorus oil would help keep it together a bit longer ? I am NOT trying to start an oil thread but it would seem to me a good diesel oil or motorcycle oil might help with extra protection .

[Arizona_928]

I've heard a lot of people use rotella in the gassers. It's what I run in all my diesels besides my hmmwv. That sob I use rotella T5

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by rfuerst911sc

A complete guess on my part , any chance switching to a high zinc/phosphorus oil would help keep it together a bit longer ? I am NOT trying to start an oil thread but it would seem to me a good diesel oil or motorcycle oil might help with extra protection .

The high zinc/phosphorus oil is for flat tappet cams. If it is a roller cam, it guess it would not hurt, but it really should not do anything to help.

[HardDrive]

Is it ok to drive a vehicle with metal parts floating around in the engine? Okaaayyyyyy.....

[sammyg2]

Useless trivia:
Shell oil company, or at least it's lubricants division, felt it would be very clever to name all their oil products after different types of seashells.
Rotella is one of em


Here are few of their other oil names:
Argina
Gadina
Corena
Diala
Gadus
Morlina
Mysella
Omala
Risella
Tellus
Tonna

most of em you can get it in different viscosity ratings and mineral or synthetic versions, resulting in a rather large book just to keep track.

Then to make it worse, the marketing einteins change the names of different shell oils occasionally making it almost impossible to keep up with inventory changes.
In at least one case, they changed the name so it was almost identical to an incompatible oil, resulting in failures.

End result?
Poor product identification, confusing line card, frustrated customers who look for excuses to go switch to a competitor's line of products.

Their only saving grace is that they make really good oils.

[ckelly78z]

Maybe you could check the health of the motor by changing the oil, and looking for that dreaded golden sheen (usually from spun rod bearings), or metal flakes/particles. Let the oil drip through an old t-shirt and see what remains as debris.

[asphaltgambler]

Originally Posted by rfuerst911sc

A complete guess on my part , any chance switching to a high zinc/phosphorus oil would help keep it together a bit longer ? I am NOT trying to start an oil thread but it would seem to me a good diesel oil or motorcycle oil might help with extra protection .

No sir - but a good thought / discussion

[Zeke]

High zinc destroys cats. Good for pre smog cars with flat lifters.

[Jeff Higgins]

Maybe not true anymore, but back when I was drag racing big block MOPARs, all we ever did to swap cams was to remove the intake manifold, water pump, valve covers, timing chain, rocker arms, distributor, and radiator. No need to pull the heads. This is true for all traditional pushrod V-8's regardless of manufacturer. If it really is just a collapsed lifter, then only the intake manifold, valve covers, and rockers have to come off. Relatively "easy" job.

[asphaltgambler]

Jeff, unfortunately with the current generation hemi's you cannot access the lifters W/O pulling the heads. You can swap camshafts as there is a trick to force the lifters up at the top of the bore where sliding out the old cam and new in, but to replace them requires the heads to come off.

[Jeff Higgins]

Wow - that sucks. So the heads capture the lifters underneath them? Whose clever idea was that? I'm having a hard time imagining any advantage to such a design.

[Scott Douglas]

What is the failure mode of the lifters?

[Arizona_928]

Known defect in the lifers. Reddit has Chrysler techs post the back of the shop with core blocks in crates.

[asphaltgambler]

Jeff - I imagine simplicity in design and cooling where the valley of the engine is exposed to air as well as the underside of the intake