Need a new head

[Larry85326]

Hey everyone , I have searched every where and found nothing on it. I just did both the secondary and tensioners in my 2000 V8 at 127,500 miles. When I pulled the exhaust cam on the left ( driver side) the cam caps and journals all looked good but 1. Number 5 cap and on the cam have some real nasty gouges in them like sand may have gotten in there. I know I may get hell from all who reads this. Against my better judgement because this is my daily car still I put it back together and it still runs and a lot better with the new chains not rattling but I still know that it's got some ugly grooves in the cap and headlong with on the cam it self. I have all the service manuals for this car and have read many other places that if I replace anything on the motor or head to change it all so I have a line on a good complete head with almost the same miles 126.000 miles do I need to also replaced the shims and lifters from one motor to the next or can I leave mine and just a just the shims to size?
Now since I have put things back together I only driven the car about 100 miles and it's been a white knuckle ride but it's holding but I do want to get a new head on it soon. So again my question is when I swap the head valves and cams from the other motor do I also replaced the lifters and or shims also.
I know I have upset a few here because I know the damage is there and I over looked it but I do and am going to make it right again. I should have gotten a second car long ago so if things l like this come about I didn't have to over look the issue and risk more damage. Again it still runs and drives but I know what can and will happen if I continue to drive it. If by some chance do destroy the motor in the car now I will just use the complete motor that I'm getting the head from but I'm hoping I dodge a bullet here and just replace the complete head.

 

[gips]

The damage to the cap itself and the cam, if only a few grooves is usually not a problem. The load on the camshafts is virtually nothing compared to the load on the crankshaft.There are no forces acting on the cams except the lobes hitting the valves, so the force acting on the journals is negligible. Most likely something in the oil has made it through the filter and then ended up between the cam and the cap.The grooves on the cap shouldn't be a problem except if they are deep and run along the whole cap leading to the outside of the cap meaning basically the oil pressure will be lost. Still even in this case you can drive for quite a while . In case you still want to change the head its a good idea to refurbish the head by at least adjusting the valves and lapping them on the new head. If a machine shop is doing it they will just grind the valve stems , so you don't need different shims. You can use , whichever you choose. Its always the clearance getting smaller with mileage , so its either a smaller shim or just a bit of valve grind. Machine shops just grind the valve stems as they don't have hundreds of shims for every engine If you are doing it yourself you can try to match shims between both heads, to adjust the clearances , but its unlikely to be able to do it without a good number of smaller size shims. After all both heads are used for ~200k KM they are likely to need valve adjustments.

 

[Larry85326]

Thank you for your reply I have run the car a bit longer and it sounds like sand in the motor it's still running I don't push it nearly as hard because of this. I think I'm still one tooth off on the timing because I still hear chain slap on the right side ( passanger). I did think about what all a machine shop would do but was thinking they would need the whole motor/car to do anything g more the the machine work. I figured as much of the valve lash a pain in the butt to do but I'll bite the bullet on that again. What I really do/did worry about is the cam and the cap. I guess when your saying if it's deep how deep is that thumb nail across it don't seem real deep but looking it does. I was told when I go to torque that cap to add maybe 5 lbs more to try to level it out but I'm not sure about that,just seems like all that will do is add more pressure and add a bite of lag to the chain. I know the damage has been done but I don't want to add so much more that all the work done so far to be a waist. I kick my self in the ass for running the car out of oil and now look what I've done.i have thought this threw a lot more and I think I'm going to make my birthday /Christmas list a bunch of new parts and rebuild the second motor while this one slowly grinds away . The car itself at 127.500 is near perfect so I'm not about to just chuck it away and I think a new rebuild would only improve the car. I would like that list to have as many new parts on it but with parts getting few and farther apart I'm looking for as many motors as I can and picking them for the best I can find.
Again thank you so much for the help any more would greatly be appreciated. I may not be the brightest crayon in the knife drawer but I do listen to good suggestions. Again thank you.ill keep you posted as to how it turns out.