How do you go about hardening old billet cam blanks from 5 years ago? Some of them were pre hardened and called Endural but many are just untreated billet. Who even does this type of work any more and what would it cost to do a cam?
You might check on Parkerizing, I've heard (which means I don't really know) some cam companies Parkerize some of their cams now. Larry T
I believe Comp & Crower can both still do a form of hardening. Whether it would be worth your while or not depends on a number of things. If the cam blanks are still available new, it's probably cheaper to just get them directly from the grinder. If not, then bring your wallet. Most smaller cam grinders probably don't have the ability. You **might** also be able to get a crank company like Moldex or Bryant to do it for you...possibly also Cola and Lunati as well.
Its actually salt bath nitriding which leaves a hard surface of about 90 rc to around .01 deep.They then do a qpq cleanup that makes it look polished.
Wonder who I need to talk to? This is a billet blank from an obscure engine of which no new, off the shelf, cams even exist today. Who does "salt bath nitriding"?
Contact Spiro's Cams, 408 313 0145, your description of the cam is vague, is it a cast or solid billet? has it been finish ground on the bearings? if so it is probably already heat treated. If it is a solid billet it would be copper plated between the lobes & bearings. Pat
Most heat treaters can do this.Metal treaters in Minnesota does this for us.We primarily use it on some components we build.I seen that some of the cam makers offer this as a up grade to there cams.The trade name is melonite qpq.We use gas nitriding for some other parts and it works good as well.The nice thing about the process it doesnt seem to distort/warp the part but it can increase the size by .0002.
Unless you know the alloy of the steel, you will need to take a small chunk and send it to a testing lab to have an analysis done. Any cam grinder that grinds billets will have a heat treater that they use, but you still need to know the alloy to do a proper job. Parkerizing is simply a phosphate anti scuff coating to hold oil on the lobes during break in. Nitriding is a final heat treat to increase surface hardness. Even if you nitride your cam, it will still need to quenched and tempered to obtain the initial hardness. If you want to get more info, look in the yellow pages under Heat Treating, and go talk to them, but they will tell you that they need to know the alloy. Good luck
Parkerizing is a simple surface coating...here's a pretty good explanation. http://deltacam.com/camshaftgrinding.php?p=6 Good stuff but not the same thing. Nitriding is done by a few different methods; it involves "fusing" or alloying nitrogen into steel surfaces in order to case-harden them. "Salt bath" nitriding is one that has, to an extent, fallen out of favor because typically the nitrogen is supplied by cyanide salts which are toxic. In addition to the places I mentioned earlier, try Isky. The bottom line is that your best bet is to call one of these larger cam companies and explain what you have; they can certainly advise how they would go about it. Again, it's going to take a larger, long-established company (IMHO) to be able to do this. Smaller companies may be able to send it out of house after grinding. One source for nitriding: http://www.burlingtoneng.com/salt_bath_nitriding.html
The truth is I don't know anything about the blank other than it's been lying on a shelf for a very long time. I am pretty sure it is a blank from Isky if they ever offered such a thing. Back in the 60's, how would these have been offered? How do I even tell if it has been treated or not? Will it have to be treated again after it is ground?
MEL roller blank? If so, it likely is from Isky, and you should be able to get information from them...another H.A.M.B.er told me that he spoke to Ed personally about a MEL 505 cam back in May or thereabouts...from what I am told he comes in afternoon-ish. Ron is knowledgeable but (understandably) is focused on selling current products.
Have you thought about physically checking the shaft to see where the hardness is now? And why keep us in the dark about what it is? .
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