Yesterday I finally cracked the case on the damaged taco plate engine and found this mess on the camshaft bearings. It looks like the bearing coatings started to come apart. One side is completely missing the coating and the rest are deeply gouged. One would assume the camshaft journals would be scratched and gouged to match the cam bearing BUT they are untouched.

The camshaft rivets are loose and the gear MOVES about 1 mm on the the shaft. I am wondering what was holding this engine together.

Wow.

Case has never been apart, old VW bearings do this I've seen it before.
Too bad the thrust bearing is wasted they are actually better than the current bearings offered.

cam gear I've also seen, but more often in buses that have been driven hard.
99.9% sure the lifter faces are flat or even concave. New they are convex.