Camshaft Engineering Company

Worn camshaft followers should never be refitted to a new or reground camshaft. A worn follower surface cannot provide the optimum contact condition with the lobe surface to ensure correct bed-in and long term durability of the follower/cam lobe interface.

Specialised machines are used for Camshaft follower refacing to obtain the appropriate convex radius contact face with smooth finish to minimise wear of the lobe. This convex radius ensures contact near the centre of the cam lobe, and in conjunction with the designed small taper of the lobes, provides follower rotation to spread the contact across the full face of the follower throughout its working life.
Automotive sized followers are refaced in a Sunnen refacing machine. Larger automotive and diesel followers are refaced in a Repco machine which has been significantly modified by the company to incorporate a special collet chuck and improved wheel dressing. Both these factors improve the quality capability of the machine.

Pivoted or rocker type cam followers are reground using radius generating fixtures to ensure that proper radius and squareness to pivot bores is achived. Flash chromed pivoted followers can be re-hardfaced and reground to original profile.

Roller type valve followers, particularly in diesel engines can be refurbished by regrinding of the rollers, either parallel, or with a special profile to minimise the effect of misalignment causing edge contact and consequent lobe or roller pitting.