I _finally_ got around to finishing my engine teardown <'74 1800cc type IV>
 and I've found the source of those pesky metal chips. It is the camshaft 
 bearings <!>. I find this very puzzling - I've had a lot of sh*tty old cars
 over the years and this is the very first time I've seen camshaft bearings
 give any grief at all. BTW, the rod and main bearings look just fine. The 
 cam itself shows wear, perhaps not unexpected in an engine with 108 kmiles
 on it. 

 The bearing material appears to be seperating from the shell backing, coming
 off in chunks. The only one that isn't breaking up is the insert with the
 flanges on it for thrust. That's another question I have: There are five 
 bearing inserts with out faces and only one with - is that normal? Intuitivly,
 I would expect a pair with thrust faces. The engine is a rebuilt from VWOA, 
 done in early '80s.

 One hypothesis I have for this failure is that the case is distorted and 
 has caused the cam bearings to overheat. Another hypothesis is that they 
 are lousy cam bearings and have slowly been falling apart for years. I'd 
 appreciate hearing anyone else's thoughts on this. Has anyone on the list
 experienced a similar problem?

 Thanks, 

 Dave