So I took my head to the machine shop to be decked and cleaned.

Got the head back today, pulled the cams out and the Cam Journals were Sand blasted. The polished finish is no more.

Can these be repolished or am i completely screwed? Why would anyone do that to begin with?

Photos?

Complain and have them polish them

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Wow, that is a rookie mistake of epic proportions. Bust out the plastigage and see if its even worth polishing them, might already be out of spec if too much material was removed

Its really irritating, I havent checked them with a plastigage yet but will be.

I don't have photos at the moment, I'm in the field for two weeks.

im going to say they didnt sand blast them. they media blasted them. its not as abrasive as sand. yes it looks like that but the journals are not hurt. My machine shop in town does this for me. no problems at all.

I guess thats a question that needs to be asked. Do you know what kind of media they used?
I see walnut being used as it softer than alum. It could have just dulled the journals.

my place uses beads. im not sure what they are made of. if you are really worried, measure the clearance, but im sure you will be fine

If that was glass beaded then it may not be OK, glass beads shatter when they hit and the shards can embed in a soft metal like aluminum. Over time that could cause issues, not to mention the surface of the metal is now not the same finish as it should be or as the caps, aluminum bearings need to be pretty smooth to hold oil pressure to get the right oil film. But I'd be more worried about glass beads and shattered glass beads hiding in the head somewhere. Our heads never have journals blasted when we get them back from the machine shop, they just tank the heads and do the machine work as needed.

glass would be super hard to clean out of the head I would be very surprised if thats what they used.

Never be surprised by the stupidity of others. Just helped my boss clean out what looked like 5-8 bottles worth of stop leak from the coolant jackets on an engine yesterday. It was packed 1 inch deep with stop leak mud everywhere, the stuff was so thick in the engine that one side of the cooling system drained green and the other side drained red coolant.

i bet it was porcelain beads. quit worrying about it. just put head together and go with it. i have had countless heads done and none have had any problems.

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You really wouldn't do anything at all? no light hand sanding with like 2k grit or aluminum polish? I know its the journal on the head and most of the force is at the top of the journal but seems like it would cause problems.

The other issue noticed is the oil hole on the Camshaft on the #2 journal has rust forming in it? Any word of advice to clean it out.

Yea, I dunno. Our heads never come back looking like that, they just get tanked. You should ask the shop what media they blasted it with. Wipe the journals down with a light oil like WD40 and see if they wipe clean or wipe dark, if they wipe dark then you need to clean the head really well as it's full of powdered metal from the blasting which means they didn't tank it post blast. I'd double check their valve job work and the shims for proper clearances.

It didn't get a valve job, seal was checked pre tank and post tank to make sure it was good. They were just lapped back in after tank/blast. I havent done anything to the head other than clean and new seals. However, I am going to take it and get it decked for the MLS HG.