Compress spring, install o ring on stem, then install keepers. Supposed to prevent oil from on top of the keeper from running down the stem…..

 

Thank you.

 

I have just finished lapping the valves and checking the valve clearances using Mguar's method. So far, so good.
Before I installed the valve springs, I lightly installed the cam box, camshaft and cam bearings and the camshaft turns nice and smooth.
Fast forward. I installed the valve springs, shims and cam followers. When I install the cam bearings, I can't get the camshaft to turn.
The Cam bearings are numbered 1-7 and the cam box is also numbered 1-7. I installed the cam bearings with the numbers facing the side with the numbers stamped on the cam box.
Given that I have the head on the workbench and when I try to turn the camshaft the head is lifting so there is not enough turning force to turn the camshaft.
Is it the valve spring pressure preventing me from turning the camshaft?

 

RESOLVED>

 

Suspense is killing me, what was it?

 

@RGK20m3: I have 2 B side camshafts and cam bearings. Somewhere along the cleaning process, my helper mixed up the bearing caps. Fortunately for me, during the disassembly process, I had paired and marked the camshafts and cam bearing caps and thinking he had left them paired I proceeded to assemble the camshaft with the wrong set of bearing caps.

 

Glad that you were able to correct things easily.

 

UPDATE:
I received a B spec piston from Robert of Camp Chaos Chronicles and had the piston skirt coated to correct some minor imperfections. The piston is now installed in the block.
I am now in the process of assembling the NOS cylinder heads I purchased and have a few questions regarding this.
I removed all of the valvetrain components from three(3) of the old cylinder heads and chose the best parts for assembly on the new cylinder heads.
However, when I assembled the heads I have valve clearances ranging from 0.007 - 0.009. The adjusting shims I have range from J (0.094)through Q (0.101).
One would think that with new heads with unworn valve seats would allow the valve stems to sit lower allowing for greater valve clearances or at least that is my speculation.
No matter how many times I shift the shims around the measurements are still too tight.
I do not think I did anything incorrectly. I hand lapped the valves just enough and did a leak test to determine that the valves were seated properly.
The installed valve springs are all the same height . I have interchanged the cam followers and shims 5 times and no matter what I do the valve clearances are too tight. Only on the last attempt did I get one valve on the A head to measure 0.012 using the thinnest shim I had (J).
As of now I believe the only option I have is to look for shims of the appropriate thickness.
After doing the MATH, I need the following shims. (23 TOTAL) unless I am doing something totally wrong.
F - 1; G - 1; H - 3; J - 5; K - 8; L - 2; M - 1; N - 1; S - 1
If anyone out there has the above listed shims I would pay $3.00 per shim unless they were new. If not, I would have to bite the bullet and pay $7.99 per shim plus shipping cost.
BTW: the above shim sizes are calculated to bring the valve clearance to between .013 - 0.14
When I checked the valve clearances, I had the cam box and cam bearings socket tight but not torqued down. I believe when I seal the cam box and torque the bearings down that should bring me somewhere around 0.13 clearance.

 

When I rebuilt the mid 80s 5.3L with new heads from SNG Barret nearly all my large collection of shims were just a bit too large.
I ended up grinding from 2 to 5 thou off about a dozen shims.
The shims were held with a strong magnet against a bench grinder linishing belt. I checked them with a micrometer and none were above 1 thou out of square.
The hardening of those shims would be more than a few thou deep.
That is one solution.

 

@richardsjags
Unfortunately I do not have a belt sander and the cost of purchasing one plus the time to grind each shim will exceed the cost of buying new shims @ US $7.95 each.
Before I place an order for new shims if I cannot get some used ones, I am going to recheck the clearances of the valves and do the math one more time to make sure I have done it correctly. Checking the 24 valves for the sixth time is tedious but worth doing it one more time to be sure.