Motorcycle Repair: 1979 honda xr185, blown head gasket, cam lobes

Question
hi, i just got this old bike. it was sold as a good runner that had a blown head gasket.when i looked inside i discovered that someone had been in there before and had used excessive amounts of gasket goop instead of actual gaskets.i think this may have caused an oil circulation problem,because the cam lobes have considerable wear.can this condition be repaired?

Answer
John, your observations are correct and it is sad that people don't have the wisdom not to do this kind of attempted repair.

I suspect that the cam lobes and rocker arms are damaged for sure, but look carefully at the cam bearings in the cylinder head. If the bearings are worn out due to lack of lubrication, the camshaft will flop around in there causing a lot of secondary problems. There used to be machinists that could save the heads by carefully maching the camshaft and/or the cylinder head bearings and installing some thin needle bearings to compensate for this problem, but the cost is probably the same as finding buying a new head nowadays.  Check Ebay and salvage yards to see if you can find a good head and use all HONDA OEM gaskets.

Bill Silver