WhiteWindsor

My car broke a few weeks ago. My dist. had 5 teeth sheared off of the gear. I assumed my oil pump locked up, but that does not seem to be the case. My cam gear looks great and i can turn my oil pump by hand without it getting hung up. Everything is MSD, yea i know, i am trying to figure out what kind of gear i have. I know it is not bronze, but not sure what kind of metal it is made of. A magnet will not stick to it. What kind of gear should i go with. The bottom of the dist., the part that slides over the oil pump shaft is worn about a 1/2 inch from the bottom. There is def. a wear pattern there as it is shiny and it tapers off in size from the rest of it. What would cause this? I have heard of people having to trim down the bottom of dist. I am thinking that maybe it was too long and it wasnt meshing with my cam gear like it should. Any one with any ideas or experience with this please chime in, i would like some helpful responses other than MSD sucks. I wont be able to reply or take pics right now, my com. at home is screwed up. I have swapped cables and even changed towers, it still says there is a connection unplugged, the only think i thing that is left would be my modem. Thanks for any help guys. Most of my engine specs are in my sig. If i cant reply tonite i will tom. when i get back to work.

BlessedHellride

If a magnetdoesn't stick to it, it probly isn't a steel gear . With the cam specs in your sig, it appears to be a roller cam, plz correct me if I'm wrong. But if it is indeed a roller, you will have to run a steel or bronze gear for it to work. I would not recommend a bronze gear for a D/D but a track car itwould work fine.

67mustang302

It has no iron if a magnet won't stick, ie it's not iron or steel. It could be one of the newer polymer type gears. As far as why it broke, did you have the proper cam and distributor thrust when everything went together? Imporper thrust on 1 or both will lead to improper gear mesh. And is it a dizzy that was designed for a 351?

WhiteWindsor

It is a 70's non roller. I am going to buy a new gear for it and do some measuring to make sure everything lines up correctly. The dizzy is the correct one for the 351. It could possibly be a bad part(that is best case scenerio). I believe that maybe it was missing one or two teeth before it stopped running. I say this because up to about 3k rpm it would miss and at the same time i was experimenting with power valves, so at the time i thought that is why it seemed to be missing. After 3k it ran great, like maybe it was spinning so fast that i could not notice the skip. I'm not sure, i will just have to replace it and make sure everything meshes together nice and give it a try.

my77stang

IIRC with a flat tappet cam you should have a cast iron gear too

WhiteWindsor

Thanks my77. I had to google IIRC to know what the hell it meant. Guess i need to freshen up with my cyber talk.

w8less

friend had the same thing happen to him with his 306. those distributer gears (stock ones) just aren't made for high horse applications. i swapped my to a bronze gear from msd. i think it was 35 bucks