I want to use the Crane 66970-1 coated steel distributor gear with my hyd roller, rather than bronze. They come without the shaft. Has anyone assembled a shaft to one? Which shaft do you recommend buying? I'll have to buy a complete intermediate shaft and disassemble it, I guess. Let me know. Havent seen this discussed in a couple of yrs. Thanks.

I'd wanna a shaft that has a good rep for minimal wear on the hex end. Here's a BTT for ya

Hughes sells them separately. I'd want a hardened tip like this one.

http://www.hughesengines.com/Index/produ...mp;partid=28019

Huges also sells the coated gear and shaft already assembled.

OIL PUMP DRIVE SHAFT W/COATED STEEL GEAR

Excellent! I have the gear so I'll order the bare shaft from Hughes. Thanks guys.

I bought the Crane composite gear but the instructions that came with it said it should not be used on a cam that has already been run with a bronze gear.

I'm guessing with respect to the Crane gear, they're concerned about existing brass particles wearing thru the coating. If you have the cam out & scrubbed the teeth clean with scotchbrite, etc it would be fine as the brass gear shouldn't have worn the harder cam gear. I'm sure this has been covered but maybe Chase would chime in on this.

Everything is new in my case. Still wondered about John's quote above regarding HV and HP oil pumps. I think I saw it in Crane's catalog too. Can't imagine a steel gear not being able to handle a HV pump (???)

HV pumps apply alot of pressure to the gears basically due to the higher resistance to turn the larger HV pump gears. This is even worse with thicker oils. I would guess it just accelerates the coating wear.