shredded dist. drive gear!

[primed92]

Anyone here experience a near- catastrophic distributor gear failure? My brother was cruising in his (chevy powered) 69\' javelin yesterday and all the sudden ka- put then KA-BOOM! backfire. Pulled over and wouldn\'t start, more backfire, this time up through the carb. long story short- we pulled the cap and turned the motor over and watched the rotor stand still while the engine was cranking. http://www.s10v8.com/images/smilies/icon_frown.gif so we pull it home and yank the MSD pro billet and sure enough it\'s heavily worn 1/2 the way around the gear and broken 1/4 of the way and then back to almost no wear. http://www.s10v8.com/images/smilies/icon_confused.gif

what do you guys think? out of round gear? bad heat treatment from MSD? the engine is relatively fresh- maybe 30 passes on it and under 1000 street miles.....



thanks for your input! I\'ll get a pic of it up as soon as possible.

[Bull]

I have seen gears that had almost knife edges on them from not being installed with the correct highth. has the block been decked? might need to have the dist. machined or use a slip collar

[stpparts]

The problem sounds like Oil Pump Failure - I had one lock up (bizarre-it was new) and waste my cam and dist. Good Luck

[primed92]

I hope it\'s not the oil pump! The parts that are worn progressively get sharper until they\'re almost razor like. was thinking aboiut this last night..... we replaced the HEI with the MSD pro billet a ways after break in and some passes. Do you think the cam gear was \"seated\" with the old dist, then tossing the new hardened one in was causing wear from the beginning? - should have the cam out this week.... thanks guys!

[mzoomora]

I would have to say to check the oil pump also. Just get a long slotted screwdriver and see if you can turn the shaft. If not, thats your problem.

[primed92]

Will do. I think we\'re going to pull the motor and have a good look see. This is the motor that i want to drop in my truck! Hopefully all i\'ll need is a new cam and dist. gear............

[headdoctor22]

sounds like the oil pump to me I\'ve seen it happen before!!

[speeder]

was it a bronze gear or a stock one? I think that with a some cams you must have a harder gear.

[primed92]

It was the gear that came on the MSD pro billet distributor. (not bronze)

[link523]

high volume oil pumps will make stock gears go bad. thats what i was told i had one sound almost like a rod knock

[DJ-Fla]

i agree with bull, and i have destroyed 2 gears from a block that was decked and i wasn\'t told it was. I was using a MSD 85551, and i needed the slip collar. Check out my pics and you will see the two that i destroyed, it was not a beautiful thing

[my454s10]

are you running a roller cam?

[primed92]

nope, plain old Comp hyd. I hope to have it out this weekend and get some pics posted.