If you have done these yourself, maybe you can help with a quick question. I know gears are a difficult thing to do, and a cam swap is a little time consuming.
Last summer I had an experienced mechanic install my gears for $150, which seemed very fair. Now I want to have him install a cam for me, and was wondering if installing a cam would run much more than gears? Which would you say would be harder or which one would you charge more for? I'd ask him, but I'm away at college right now, and was looking for a ball park figure for a cam install.

 

It shouldn't be any more than 150 if he only charged that for the gears. It, in my opinion, is harder to mess with gears than to swap a cam out. It took me about a day and a half messing with my gears but only about 5 hours for the cam install.

 

it will cost you considerably more for the cam considering that it will have to come out one of two ways, one is to removethe radiator, and ac evaporator(or is that condensor, I never remember) or to pull the engine since you need aproximately 2 feet clearance in front of the engine unobstructed so you dont twist the cam to one side and tear up the bearing in the end going in or out, plus if your having new bearings put in (which is highly recomended) then there is the clearance of the tools as well. so most likley the engine will end up coming out and then yor paying the big bucks, might as well wait till summer if you have access and pull the motor yourself, take it to a machine shop and havenew bearings installed and then put it back together yourself.

 

The motor is only 1 yr old, so it won't need new bearings, the AC is already off. And all smog equipment removed too.

 

since your ac is off, you should do it in car, although it might get a little tight near the end. also remember that the intake and lifters/pushrods need to come out. it isn't hard and you could do it yourself in an afternoon. just find a friend with appropriate tools and knowledge, feed him tons of beer to laugh at you and tell you when you are messing up, and save yourself some money to boot.

 

Cam swap should cost a little more. You gotta take off a lot of stuff to get to the cam. Cost me about about $50 or so in gaskets, oil, and oil filters. Valve cover gaskets were still good so that saved me about $30.00 (mine use the rubber gaskets, $15/each).

If you know how to do gears, it should only take a few hours.

 

I'm about 90% sure the labor manual calls for 7 hours on a cam swap, so yea quite a bit more expensive. That 7 hours doesent include bearings but everthing else that has to be done for a cam swap. So your probably looking $350/400 bucks in labor + gaskets.

 

If it's going to cost that much, guess I'll be waiting a while.

 

it's just time. go ahead and do it yourself. like zepher said, it will run you $50 to $75 provided that you already have the cam. it is really straight forward. get a friend to walk you through. that's half the fun of having cars is to do the work yourself.
dive in and don't look back.
jess

 

A few hours!! have you ever worked on gears doing a swap?? Ever set the backlash to a perfect .00. before? Changed the crush collar and set preload?? It takes more than a few hours and there is also things to replace such as gear oil, cover gasket, crush collar, and I'm sure I'm leaving some things out. I'll admit that when I worked on it I had no experience, but it usualy takes a good 5 to 6 hours for a professional to do it right. You don't just toss them in there bolt em down and go. As for which one will cost more I don't know.
I really don't think that the cam swap will be that much more than the gear change. You can leave the motor in and take out the radiator and condensor, bend the rad support piece thats vertical in the center and slide. Then remove the fuel pump (along with water pump, intake, altenator, steering pump, harmonic balancer, timing chain cover, an of course the distributor) and slide the old one out. Lube the new one and let the lifters soak in some oil for a half an hour. Slide the new cam in and line up the dot on the cam with the dot on the harmonic balancer (this will put number 1 at top). stick the new lifters in and put everything back on. As for the pushrods just put them in and tighten the rocker arm down until you can barely spin the pushrod with your fingers. Do this for all and then put the intake on (with new gaskets). Leave the valve covers off. Put the distributor back on with pointing towards number 1. Put wires back on. Start engine and tighten the rockers down till they stop chattering. Then give another 1/8 turn for each. Put covers back on and set idle to about 2300 rpm or so and let the cam break in. I know I screwed something up here so anyone correct if I'm wrong (kinda in a rush to get to class).

 

My brother and I did a cam swap on my old 305 and we didn't have to take off the fuel pump. Also the supports in front of the radiator are already bent. When we did this, I literally took out 2 handfuls of old oil deposits in the heads. The car started 2 times and never again. My brother has done this stuff before, so we're not sure what happened, maybe the motor was reaching it's end and the cam didn't help. Either way, it ended up causing me to buy a new motor and getting a loan. So I want to leave it to a professional to do.

 

oil really doesn't form deposits, only sludge if left too long and allowed to break down. by the sound of it, that engine was pretty much toast to begin with because you were probably scouping out metal ie. bearing pieces, ect.
did you do a correct break in proceedure on that cam you installed? not doing the break in can cause a cam to go flat and then your car won't start because the valves won't open.
jess

 

I assume the cam was broken in correctly. My brother has done it before and I remember him running the car for a little while, not sure at what rpms though.

 

If I was able to do both and had the choice, I'd do the gear swap, a lot less parts to take off and put on.

I did my cam swap with the help of a friend and his girlfriend. They didn't know how to do it either, we were going to do his after we did mine. Was an easy job, but took a long time, 4 hours the first day and 4 or so hours the next. Took 2 days because we didn't have the puller for the balancer.

 

I would say that for a driveway/garage job, the cam swap would be easier than changing gears. Mark, remember that when you are working with a brand new engine, things will most likely go MUCH more smoothly. The whole swap can be done with hand tools in a full day (if you take your time). I would rather kick myself in the face than pay $400 for a cam swap.

-peace

 

Oh, believe me I would rather kick you in the face too, than pay $400 for a cam swap. I was hoping for $200, guess I'll find out soon, I'm just going to have my brother get a hold of the guy. I would rather pay the about $200 and have it gauranteed than risk something breaking, but if it's more than $250, I'll see what my brother and I can do. Of course another bad reason I have negative feelings towards doing it myself, the last time it was January and about 20* outside, my fingers were kind of numb.

 

$400 for a cam swap sure is expensive to me. I guess for a shop to do it though, it's reasonable. Too bad you don't live closer to IN, i'd be more than willing to help you out. Like everyone else said the hardest part of installing a cam is making sure you hold the cam horizontal to the motor when installing, or you run the risk of screwing up the bearings.

 

Im supprised the came out/in with the fuel pump on it. The fuel pump rod rides a cam lobe like a lifter, it could have some how slipped off and thats why your car never started again. Just thinking


As far as a cam swap (do it yourself job). Its a pain! But you can do it. The last cam swap I did was hyd to soild and it took me 5 hours. Yes the book calls for 7 but im just that smooth Really the car was about like yours no emmissions Junk /AC, 1 hour was spent readjusting the solid lifters, PITA!! Its real easy to do just time consuming, removing that 4 pin cowl hood made it easyer RIP Just set a day aside and do it yourself. Pull the water pump and harmonic ballancer and timimg cover and get the timing marks on the chain/gear centered the distributor rotor should be pointing to the #6 plug wire on the cap, passenger side wiper arm base. then pull the (FUEL PUMP) , Distributor, intake, valve covers, loosen rockers and remove push rods and lifters, remove the radiator and loosen the bottem bolts on the hood bracket 10mm so it can have some movment and pull the cam out. Of course If you have timing gears your gonna have to take off the idler pully. The cam should come straight out. The removal of everything only took me about an hour and 3 to put it back togather. If you run into problems just ask us and we can probably help you.

 

I knew I screwed up somewhere!! I meant to say line up the dots on the gears (crank and cam). This will put the number 1 piston at top dead center.