Found out why I don't have spark, I lost some dist. gears on one side and others have some wear. The only question I have is why? What would cause this? It looks like my cam is fine but I do have metal in my oil now. I was told to take some big earth magnets and put on oil pan to draw any metal to the pan and keep out the of pump. Is this ok? Should I only replace gear and that's it. I was also told that this could have been caused by lack of oil to dist. gear & cam. I haven't got to pulling top off to see if there is a thermostat problem because the couple times I have ran the engine the water temp only hits around 105/110 degrees tops! Was my oil running too think and not lubing the gear properly? This MSD dist. only has maybe 8 hours on it.

What distributor part number is it?

MSD all in one #8360

Could be caused by the cam walking in the block. What kind of cam????

I'm not sure exactly what cam I have. I do not have history on motor accept when it was gone through and freshened up last August and they did not replace cam. How can I tell without pulling it? I am assuming it is a Billit Cam that would be the stock cam for the engine but I do not know...

Also, if the cam was walking wouldn't it not be able to consistantly keep timed?

A billet cam will eat a distributor gear. You either need to use a soft bronze gear, some special hardened gear that GM used to make, or a cam with a pressed on iron gear.

I'd suggest changing the oil and filter regularly until all the debris is out of the motor. I'd put the magnet on the filter, not the pan. The heavy chunks will settle out in the pan and hopefully drain with the oil, unless the pan became magnetized. The filter is simply thrown away with all the crap it catches. Filter Mag is one product that comes to mind.

There was a post recently on the very subject of billit cams and regular distributor gears. It wasn't long ago. There was some advice on a replacement gear set that will live better with the billit cam.

Maybe a search of billit cam or distributor gear would pop it up.

This is good advice, remember, don't rev the engine when it's cold. That can cause the oil to bypass the filter. When you get it started let it idle as long as possible until you get it up to operating temperature, then change the filter.

Thanks a lot for the input guys and keep it coming with any more advice... MIKE

I don't have time to go through this whole thread (below) but I think it may have some nuggets of help for you. Good luck.

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/s...36#post1431036