by 1of10K » Tue Jul 14, 2009 11:40 am
The cam is what you will find if you take off the valve cover. It is turned by the timing belt from the lower crankshaft and basically restricts the valves from flying out! My cam was extremely worn, sounded like a bunch of baseball cards stuck in bicycle spokes, because the cam followers were loose and slapping metal to metal on the badly worn cam lobes. I think the former owner didn't care for it as he should have, or didn't change the oil or add any either. The '82 coupe I recently sold had slightly more miles that my '81, but with no wear on it's cam, but it had one owner who cared for it.
I don't think the early Ks had a bad cam design, just alot of bad owners as the cars got old and people really didn't care for them anymore.