Cam shaft from Amazon

Lapdog411

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I bought a replacement camshaft for a B&S 18.5 hp engine from Amazon. The cam lobes are cast, not ground or polished. I've never seen a cam lobe that didn't have a mirror finish. Has anyone else seen this? I've really reluctant to install this. Your thoughts, please.
 

ILENGINE

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Small engine manufacturers have been using pressed powder metal cam lobes for years.
 

bertsmobile1

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To be totally blunt as Aussies are renown for
"you pay shite & you will get shite"
or as grandad use to say
"he who buys cheap pays thrice "
Amazon is good for books,, some times .
everything else is potentially rubbish as Bezos has no quality control over the vendors, most of which are totally annonomous so the perfect site for selling scrap metal pretending to be quality parts as you have just found out
I but mine off Alli-BABA where vendors are identified and must have a real street address and add to that if they get complaints from customers about vendors they get kicked off.
IF I want 10 or more , and I do with 31 series cranks I buy them direct from the manufacturer via MadeInChina
I know this is hard for patriotic flag waving Americans to appreciate that their own man is a crook and that horrid baby eating communist China man is far more honest but unfortunately that is the case.
WFIW the last warehouse I was involved in running used to rent excess pallet space on a weekly basis to people who sold goods via Amazon & Ebay & Buy-Right & other on line sites
They had multiple identities on the same & different sites and in many cases sold the exact same item under several names for several different prices and all of it was scrap
They sent us the picking order + invoice to be included with the package
So you buy the $ 10 cam and it is junk so then you buy the $ 20 one from what you think is a different vendor & get the same junk cam so then you try the $ 30 one, same story
IF they have a lot more to offload then they will give you refund but if most are gone then they will ignore you .
 

sgkent

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anything from Amazon you have to be careful with the words. Often something will say, "OEM quality, replaces XYZ." "Replacements XYZ, DEF, HJU, etc." That usually means a cloned copy not the original quality part. What you are looking for is "Genuine B/S part number XYZ." Then you read the bad reviews to see if people are getting what they are paying for.
 

bertsmobile1

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You still have the problem that I can legally sell quality control reject parts as
OEM B & S 123456789 part
And also fits models X,Y & Z which is what most do
I can then place a photo of the original B & S part in the add with the caption
Not the actual part or indicitative or for identification purposes etc etc etc .
Being independent I only have access to parts that my wholesalers carry which is about 1/2 of what I need.
So I originally tried buying off ebay & Amazon and even using my usual methods of testing the vendor & only buying pars that are branded still about 1/2 of ebay purchases and 1/3 of Amazon nes were trash
Then when looking for motorcycle parts I stumbled across Made In China and from them the ALI's ( Ali-Baba & Ali-Express ) .
In the 8 years I have been buying from them not one single part was bad .
Some did get damaged in transit and of course most do not use China Post so I pay through the neck for freight but I get good service, usually 14 to 21 days delivery and every single item has been good
So Amazon will never see another cent from me and ebay is for buying used things from private vendors .
 

StarTech

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I tried five of those Amazon aftermarket 793880 camshafts. They were junk. Two had to be filed to even to even get them to fit and three failed with 90 days of use. I still got two in the box here but I probably just going to trash them as it is a waste of my time because I am having to rework the repairs at cost as I gave the customer the choice of using OEM (having to wait until them came in) or taking a chance. All three customers agreed it was a mistake to go with the aftermarket cams.

BTW the two I had to file I couldn't contact the Amazon vendor as they closed and open back under another vendor name. One heck of a con.

It bad enough that even the Briggs 793880 superseded to 84005207 is a poor design but at they hold up a lot better. What worst is the last time I checked they were on back order until after Christmas. At least I got two OEM on hand and only seen one failure this year and it was one of aftermarket ones I installed.
 

Lapdog411

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Thanks for the education. ... . Lesson learned.
 

Elkins45

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Are camshaft failures a common problem?
 

bertsmobile1

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On Briggs yes very much so and the 31 series seem to be the worst by far
Kohler less so except for the Courage singles and their cam can be changed in about 1/2 hour by an experience tech because it can be done with the engine still in the mower .
 
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