Holden HD Holds Australian record for monthly sales

[Davehoos]

cam shaft.

cam lobe has a hardened surface or case hardening. I often told by good engine rebuilders about running engines on dyno at certain RPM to work harden the cam lobe face. cant see that happening on a production engine.
look at a black smith making a sword blade a compare that to a cast $20 shaft run on a grinder.

Then add in the fact that some tooling may have been a bit at the end of life and the inspections may have been a bit average. In my time `1980's the V8 line stopped and started, the dealer had sold bucket loads of V8 in the 70's as the media had claimed the end of the world stuff without oil and the old blokes came in regular for there dealer service.

on top of that I had replaced valve springs push rods, cyl heads [holden heads are cast iron without inserts] due to poor fuel or oil decoke was required to stop running on and over heating.

lifter on a holden normally last till the cam gears need replacing but it could be possible for them to get stuck with engine varnish and not rotate.
most red holden 6 or V8 had cork/paper gaskets and with NSW rego inspections you rip off the valley side and rocker covers every other year. when you flushed the cooling system-water pumps and radiators lasted a few years with salt spray on the coast.

to replace a lifter you can flick it out and fit a new one and not worry about how worn the cam lobe was and most garages would have buckets of used lifters you clean up on the grinder--refacing concave bottom of a lifter was part of mechanics apprentiship training at tafe.

VK and VN V8 rebuilt loads of these. never touched a VL V8.must have had university trained engineers on assemble making it quicker by lining up the rings and using silastic on rubber gaskets. the oil pump that had been machined so the oil filter fell off.

engine rattles.
taught early not to get involved with customer unless it was someones mate-had lots of stories about A9X vintage engines with piston slap-then the brock inprooved and group A started to come in, the racing quality pistons rattling around in a cold bore until the engine warmed up.

VN-VP.
I had the fortune to work ant landrover building vehicles and on my return to Newcastle I was a senior mechanic dealing with the public. .For a time I was refreshing 2 x 6 cyl a day due to build quality of the new product.
took an 4-5 hours to R/R engine-replace gaskets and seals. sand down the paint on the gasket surface, check valve springs, drive plate, water pump and core plugs, cam tensioner, balance shaft.
then latter on it was cam shaft and cam bearings and crank shaft because of oil pressure issues. from the oil pump.

I had a few EA-EB that I purchased as ex taxi and had minimal breakdown.
mostly fuel and ignition-fan belts related issues. I scrap these when the cooling system was dodgey. the AU I scrapped when a cheeper car came along.

I come from owning P76 Nissan-pintara/skyline/bluebird and magna charade that had never left me on the roadside

sorry for the dribble its raining and cold.