Camshaft and crankshaft bearings

Tiny
SHAWNEVANS6611
  • MEMBER
  • 2000 CHEVROLET SILVERADO
  • 5.3L
  • V8
  • 4WD
  • AUTOMATIC
  • 333,000 MILES
Whats up, I was the one who binged watched all 9 videos of the LS series in 1 day and I commented. Great work. Anyways. I have a 2003 5.3 LS1 Gen 3 I am rebuilding with 222,000 miles to put in my truck listed above with 333,000 miles. Pulled the cam to swap out with another one (nephew said it is a "bump stick") and the bearings are shot. So I will pull crank and I need to get cam and crank bearings. I checked out summit racing since they hooked you up and there are multiple styles of bearings ranging from $70.00 ish to $200.00 ish. The only difference I could tell (don't know much about this stuff) is just what they are made from. Do you have any recommendations or should I just call them and ask them? I know you had the machine shop install your cam bearings, but I have not been able to find a shop and 1 I did also wanted to do other things to the block totaling around $800.00. Do you recommend I have them go through the block and cam and clean everything? Trying not to spend over $1,500.00 for everything. Got the engine for free and just bought about $300.00 in parts, trying to use everything existing I can. Still need to buy the cam tool unless I can find a machine shop.
Thanks for your time.

Saturday, February 6th, 2021 AT 4:28 PM

4 Replies

Tiny
DANNY L
  • MECHANIC
  • 5,648 POSTS
Hello, I'm Danny.

Do you have this motor completely torn down to just the bare block? If so, yes it's a good idea to have it magnafluxed to check for cracks. As far as cam bearings its always good to follow the camshaft manufacturers recommendation for what type of camshaft it is whether it be hydraulic tappet, roller tappet, solid tappet, etc. Hope this helps and thanks for using 2CarPros.
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Monday, May 10th, 2021 AT 11:41 AM
Tiny
SHAWNEVANS6611
  • MEMBER
  • 8 POSTS
It is not torn down. I was just hoping to replace the cam bearings and put it back together. Can you do that with the crank in?
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Monday, May 10th, 2021 AT 11:41 AM
Tiny
RYAN L
  • ADMIN
  • 256 POSTS
First off, thanks so much for watching the series! Secondly, technically yes you could. I would not though. For a couple reasons. If it has that many miles on it I would just rebuild it anyhow. Not to mention if you mess up it would be really difficult to fix or if you get any kind of metal from the installation in the block you are really in trouble.

As far as bearing material goes, the ones I used from Summit Racing seemed perfect for our application. If you were going for a race application you might want something more high end. Thanks for watching!
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Monday, May 10th, 2021 AT 11:41 AM
Tiny
DANNY L
  • MECHANIC
  • 5,648 POSTS
Hello again.

Yes, I agree with Ryan. If you have any machine work done a engine block including having bearings installed there will always be the slight chance of having debris or metal shavings present that can ruin an engine. Hope this helps and thanks again for using 2CarPros.

Danny-
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Monday, May 10th, 2021 AT 11:41 AM

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