worn distributor gear
 

Had my distributor out & noticed the gear is about 80% gone in about 100hrs! I had another gear that seems to be the same style that originally came w/ the distributor when I ran the stock flat tappet cam. This new worn gear should be the harden style for the roller cam. How can you tell the difference between the hardened vs. non-hardened style, there is no stamped part #. Other than assuming this was not a hardened gear to begin with, could anything else cause the gear to wear like this?

mrfixxall
 

usually the soft gear is bronze and the hars gear is steel,,check with the cam mfr and see what cam you have and ask them which gear to use...what t block do you have? you may also have some cam walk that is causing the problem..another thing to check is the distributor,,is it a adjustable collered msd ? if its not set rite it will ware the gear..

A buddy just figured out the cause of the same problem....he needed to put a spacer under the distributor, the gear was a little too low

How did he determine the correct depth to shim the distributor?

I went by a dealer @ lunch & they said it looked like a cast non hardened version. They didn’t have the correct gear in stock so I need to go to another dealer after work to compare.

mrfixxall
 

Do you have a billit roller cam? hyd,,solid ?certain cams use certain distributor gears.

GM 454HO hyd roller cam

Three different dealers & three different answers?

The menlonized gear for all crate motors looks the same as the damaged one but also looks to be the same finish as the original flat tappet style. There doesn’t appear to be any visual difference between the two.

The 96-99 7.4l w/ the roller cam has a different finish & smaller diameter shaft bore so its ruled out.

The only thing to try is replace it w/ the melonized crate motor gear & periodically check it? Any way to check or rule out cam walk w/o removing the timing cover?

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-t...utor-gear.html

I would also be concerened where it went:eek:

There was a thread on the same subject in the last two weeks, do a search and I bet you find it.

I have billet cam's in my 502's and I am going to run the new composite gear(apparently designed for billet cam shafts). Hold on to your socks though, $100 per gear! You can buy them from summitracing.com

WOW, I'll have to check these out. Probably a good investment though. I am facing the same concerns for my new custom Comp grinds (hyd. roller). I was kind of wondering what most were running now also.

I was planning on using the std. ones that came on the TB distributors. I've never had one go bad. I never used anything but. Then again there is something new and knowledge to be gained every day.

The gear material on the cam gear determines the gear material needed for the distributor gear. Crane cams used a pressed on steel gear and you could run the stock distributor gears.

time to pull the engine down, the cam you have takes a std iron gear, so something is wrong, but all that metal is now embedded in the bearings thru-out the engine, keep running it...well the pin has been removed....Rob

Another cause could also be a leaky intake gasket....I had a gear wear out becuase of water dripping down the dist. hole under the intake in the valley.

There's a website called Pace Performance Parts- they have the hardened gear to use with a billet cam for $40.00. The Merc Dist. is a .491" diameter shaft.

I realized it never had a cam retainer installed when it was switched over to the roller cam so cam walk is what was tearing up the gear. I put a bronze gear in & now wonder if thats ok or if I should switch it back out for a composite or another harden gear?

I used to run bronze gears on my drag motors before the gear improvements avail. now. the problem is they wear rather fast and leave trace metal in the oil. you will see a gold sheen when changing oil always been scary to me!

The bronze gear will wear out pretty fast on a pressed on steel cam gear. I would change it.

This is what you need:drink:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...%3AMESELX%3AIT