Barbelith Underground > Film, TV & Theatre > Terminator workshop disassembly

Healing and dying of tissues is often not an all-or-nothing phenomenon for the organism.

That said he does look more and more manky as the film progresses. From my memory of the novelisation of T1 he'd cleared away the flesh around his eye so he could see properly. It was all slowly decaying as the film went on, but by that point it's cover didn't matter quite so much as it had locked onto it's target.

The T-800 wiki has quite a bit of detail about the durability of the flesh covering.

The tissue of the T-800 series was able to live for a time without blood, oxygen, or nutrients due to changes made to the flesh material's genome by Skynet. This artificial flesh was essentially human material, containing real skin, underlying flesh, and hair, but it was heavily modified at the genetic level. It produced heat and sweat like natural skin, and a pressurized layer of synthetic blood was present under the layer of skin so the T-800 would appear to bleed realistically when injured. This blood was kept pressurized by a miniature pump located on the T-800's chest where the human sternum would be. For all its resilience, this artificial living flesh had a definite shelf life, and if it was left in service for too long, it would begin to rot and necrotize, and the T-800's cover would be blown. Untreated damage to the flesh disguise would create a suitable breeding ground for microorganisms and would therefore accelerate the degradation process. To prevent this problem, Skynet stored flesh-covered T-800 units in cryogenic pods when they were not in service in order to prevent premature degradation of the synthetic flesh. Normal T-800 units do not require cryogenic storage and would be stored in a large chamber until they were deployed. Skynet corrected this problem later by installing vital organs the size of a small animal's to keep the tissue alive; with this eating subroutines were also installed. It was able to go far longer than an average human without food due to the genetic alterations in the tissue. The T-800's were also programmed to limit their movements unless cover was blown and it assessed that the only way to function is to retreat, because the machine could move in ways a human body couldn't (such as having the ability to sprint at 60 mph) and would tear the tissue.

Oddly enough I was reading the first of the Terminator graphic novels last week (found it at the bottom of a box of old junk). It's not too bad but probably not canon. A group of rebels travel back to prevent Cyberdyne creating Skynet, whilst four (count em!) Terminators come back to ensure Skynet is created.

There's some good moments in it. Such as the Terminators doing some crude surgery on a rebel so they can bring a blaster pistol back with them. One of them is a field repair specialist unit created by implanting cybernetics into a rebel trauma medic, whose function is to maintain the flesh coverings of active Terminators (predictably he switches sides in the comic)

I recall it led into another story where the last surviving Terminator, it's mission a success, reverts to the secondary mission given to all Terminators that go back beyond a certain point: Find Sarah Conner. Kill Sarah Conner.

Well, gives them something to do I guess.