Further diving into my motor today to fix a lifter issue and thought I should ask regarding the wear on this bronze gear. Car has a Comp hydraulic roller setup with about 3k street miles and a few 1/4 passes.
Besides, the bronze gear is suitable to be used with any cam core material. There just isn’t any upside to doing so on cast cores, since they don’t last as long, and they’re expensive....... so why would you?
68 Satellite, 383 with stock 906’s, 3550lbs, 11.18@123 Dealer for Comp Cams/Indy Heads
Well high volume oil pumps cause wear, not setting your distributor thrust causes wear, not setting you cam thrust causes wear, tight cam bearings cause wear, and a few others. They were also some very low quality bronze gears on some of the drives.
How much cam endplay ? What kind of button are you using? I have a new gear I found in my trailer that I had as a spare $25 and I'll ship it to you. I was going to list it here in the next week or so.
As I already mentioned....... the melonized steel gear.
You just have to have a combo where a std pressure/std volume oil pump will work for you.
I agree. This seems to be true. I have a roller cam in my street car that i inspected at about 2500 street miles and the wear was very insignificant. It has a Std volume oil pump.
Wow, that gear is really worn. I've never seen one worn down that far. If that happened after only 3000 miles then you'll need to find another solution. The gear that Hughes Engines sells might solve the problem for you.
I agree, it's way past toast, don't even crank the engine again or you'll be looking for the broken teeth.
With that much play your piston-to-valve clearance isn't how you set it up - take a look for marks.
I've heard cryo treatment helps extend gear life, but no actual tests TIKO.
No matter how wet it looks with the cover off, believe me more oil can't hurt. Many older engines have directed oil (my 1958 Chevy 235 L6 stovebolt has a spray nozzle), or at least a drool hole above the cam to insure they're wet enough. Is there something like this for your engine?
In fact it was toast when it had 1/2 that much wear.
Might want to look into the melonized steel gear.
High volume or high pressure oil pump?
You are correct, it is a billet steel core. I knew these things were sacrificial, but didn't expect it to be toast this soon. It actually cut me pulling it out.
Motor has a standard Melling pump, but I run Brad Penn 20w50. It'll have over 70lbs of pressure until warm and settle down to 45lbs.
I'll call Comp Cams tomorrow regarding the melonized gear. Will change the oil to a thinner weight before I start it up again too.
Are you running a hardened washer between the shaft bushing and the gear? Wear in the thrust surface will eat a gear faster than me eating an arbys sandwich. If the elevation of the gear isn’t correct, the two gears don’t mesh correctly. I strongly believe that is your issue.
Are you running a hardened washer between the shaft bushing and the gear? Wear in the thrust surface will eat a gear faster than me eating an arbys sandwich. If the elevation of the gear isn’t correct, the two gears don’t mesh correctly. I strongly believe that is your issue.
That’s an interesting point. One, i’ve never thought about before. I think in the future builds that i do, i will make a part of the engine buikd steps, the following: Use machinist dye on the gear, install in engine and rotate with distrib installed. Then inspect contact pattern to see if any adjustment is needed. Good point!
That’s the one I’m referring to. Says it can be used with any type of cam.
I have the Hughes Melonized one in my car, I have over 6k miles on it, I checked it at 3k miles & it still look new, I will check it this week . Not saying its ok to run one I do have a HV pump but I have no choice.
1968 Charger COLD A/C Hilborn EFI 512ci 9.7 compression, Stealth heads, 4.10 gear A518 ODtrans 4100lb,10.93 full street car trim 2020 T/A 392 Stock 11.79 @ 114.5
7,000 miles and hundreds of dragstrip passes and it still looks new.
I recall at least one person here telling me to "get back with them when the engine has a few miles on it..."
Last edited by GY3; 11/30/2011:50 AM.
'63 Dodge 330 11.19 @ 121 mph Pump gas, n/a, through the mufflers on street tires with 3.54's. 3,600 lbs. 10.01 @ 133mph with a 250 shot of nitrous an a splash of race gas. 1.36 60 ft. 3,700 lbs.
I put 3000 street miles and hundreds of passes on my old pump gas Duster with a bronze gear using 5W20Wt regular Valvoline oil in it, no noticeable wear on it when I sold it. I had trimmed the oil pump bypass spring so it had 80Lbs. pressure cold and idled with 20 Lbs. at 850 RPM with 160+F oil temps. and 45 Lbs at or above 1200 RPM with hot oil, 75 Lbs. over 5000 RPM with hot oil OP, I have seen a bronze gear do what yours did and break off some of the teeth at the track, which makes me believe there are more than one company making them, the good and the bad ones. The cheaper ones are probably not the good ones
Mr.Cab Racing and winning with Mopars since 1964. (Old F--t, Huh)
When you get a new gear, put marking compound on it and check the pattern, like a rear gear. You may have to space up, or cut down height, and you may need to shim the cam forward, or backward. I've seen this happen before, and its been misalignment when it happens fast. Any bias in that gear puts a huge load on the gear as it tries to screw the cam out of the block. The last one I saw was an old factory block where the block busing was so worn it has the gear way too low.
A friend just got a new Isky roller and it allows steel gears to be used now and I also replaced mine after 6 years and it had slop but was not tore up like the op's. I also had a 3-piece Torrington bearing set up between the block bushing and the bottom of the bronze gear after Pettis machined off material to make up the difference but I was off on my measurement so it rode too high on the cam gear. Got a new Crane bronze gear which is the hardest Rockwell tested one they offer as far as bronze goes and just one flat washer off of the Torrington deal and my timing is rock solid now with my cam preloaded against the timing cover with a rollerized Isky cam button going on 15+ years and LOTS of street miles.....
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I totally agree and haven't seen many that appear ok at all. I am working now on shortening my new cam on my lathe and making a home made hard spacer for raising/shimming the oil pump drive gear . And, I have a solid flat tappet lifter dang near hanging off the edge of a cam lobe on this one. I also have the need to use a adjustable rotor for the Distributor. All top quality brands too. I've been a machinist etc. all of my working career and tend to see these anomalies easily by eye at first before getting out the micrometers. I can't imagine not checking this area in a engine.
Last edited by cryplydog; 12/01/2005:17 PM. Reason: mistake
I totally agree and haven't seen many that appear ok at all. I am working now on lengthening my new cam with a home made hard spacer and raising/shimming the drive gear as we speak. And, I have a solid flat tappet lifter dang near hanging off the edge of a cam lobe on this one. I also have the need to use a adjustable rotor for the Distributor. All top quality brands too. I've been a machinist etc. all of my working career and tend to see these anomalies easily by eye at first before getting out the micrometers. I can't imagine not checking this area in a engine.
[censored] is going on with this project raising the oil pump drive gear Is the oil pump drive bushing in decent usable condition? Is your block even usable? What type motor are you working on that you need to lengthen the cam on? Sometimes you need to throw away all the bad parts and get better parts, especially if you want good results
Mr.Cab Racing and winning with Mopars since 1964. (Old F--t, Huh)
I totally agree and haven't seen many that appear ok at all. I am working now on lengthening my new cam with a home made hard spacer and raising/shimming the drive gear as we speak. And, I have a solid flat tappet lifter dang near hanging off the edge of a cam lobe on this one. I also have the need to use a adjustable rotor for the Distributor. All top quality brands too. I've been a machinist etc. all of my working career and tend to see these anomalies easily by eye at first before getting out the micrometers. I can't imagine not checking this area in a engine.
Lengthening the cam = spacing it forward? That's interesting. Have you compared the gear location to another cam?
Also, I'm sure you noticed but you'll need to shim the crank gear as well. I had to do this on mine and I didn't even space the upper gear out. I used pinion shims.
I just pulled my milodon gear out and after about 1000-1200 miles, It doesn't look much better than the original posters. What are the shims people are using to space it up? Seems I've also read people de-burring the cam gear, mine is a comp cam.
'68 Coronet 500 w/ Indy EZ-1 headed 446, 727 trans, 9" rear First day at the track with SUV street tires and no traction: 1.688 60', 7.24 @ 101.79 in the 1/8 mile
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The interesting thing about needing special parts to rectify this problem is........ For the motors built using old OE blocks....... they probably got 100k out of the original cam and gear...... and were probably still fine when they were pulled(so...... how bad could the alignment have been?)
And...... you never really hear of Mopars wearing out iron gears being used on flat tappet cams.
I don’t think the bronze gears are as good as they used to be(no proof, just a gut feeling)........ and for sure...... I’ve seen some roller cam cores where the ends of the teeth on the gear could use some attention.
It would make for an interesting test...... On a roller cam where the teeth were pretty squared off...... buy two of the same part number bronze gear at the same time. Install cam and gear, run for say 2000-2500 miles.
Remove cam and gear....... dress up the teeth on the cam, reinstall cam with new gear. Run for the same mileage as done for the first stage of the test...... pull gear and compare wear of second gear to the wear on the gear from the first stage.
68 Satellite, 383 with stock 906’s, 3550lbs, 11.18@123 Dealer for Comp Cams/Indy Heads
The timing chain cover can have a big impact on a roller cam cam movement - The cam button can cause significant deflection in the factory cover letting the cam walk forward. Making a spacer and welding or epoxy it in place to go between the cover and the water pump is a cheap solution.
I also thing the quality of the bronze gear has gone down over the past ten years - its become a piece to be changed out on a regular schedule now
McMaster carr has the hardened torrington washer. I remove material from the intermediate gear thrust surface equal to the washer thickness. A bronze gear running on a bronze bushing wears fast, leading to gear elevation change, leading to ground up gears. A very cheap and simple way of avoiding these problems.
Sorry guys, that even confused me when I reread the post. Yes Cab, I have awlays used the best parts for my cars etc, top brands only and I like certain brands over others. I guess what I was trying to convey to others is very simply that these gears are needed to run 90* from each and on Center. Oh yeah, Mopar BB only for me but I have worked many other brands for high performance reasons.