Hi, just curious when you use a bronze gear on a billet roller cam, and a bronze sleeve to support the gear, what is supposed to keep them from wearing against each other?

If 'sleeve' is referring to the intermediate shaft bushing.....

In my humble opinion, the bottom of the gear and top of the bushing wear together poorly.

That's not to say it doesn't work LOL. No, It works just great. Change the oil often, you won't have any problems.

I have heard of the parts being machined to accept a bearing (torrington washer) to stop the wear.

Although I already pressed on a bronze gear for my latest build, I'm thinking about pressing it right back off again
and trying Melonized.............

Oil
I ran one(Milidon gear on a Pioneer bushing) on my old pump gas car with no wear problems for over 3000 miles and hundreds of 1/4 and 1/8 mile races
I recently had a Mopar brand oil pump drive with bronze gear wobble horribly in the block, It was bad enough to make the distributor move around when running or on the starter Bad parts are out there so make sure yours is not one of them

that's the problem, I have been changing the oil often, and the gold colored sparkly things are disheartening. At least I think I know where it's coming from.

They make those plastic drive gears but I'm not ready for that.

I haven't seen them for sale, but I haven't looked everywhere yet. I know there are plastic gears for Chevys (they were OEM on some engines). I'm working on a 426 Hemi.

I was pondering adding a thin hard steel shim between the two soft parts, so they won't want to gall.

Shim. There used to be a shim kit sold that was used to adjust clearance/end play on the shaft to reduce erratic timing. Although I never saw wear there being an issue on anything I had. Maybe need to check and make sure that the distributor shaft is not loading the gear against the bushing for some odd reason.

I have used a torrington bear washer between the gear and bushing. They are .030 thick and I machine the bottom of the gear that amount.

You are absolutely correct about the wear ... they are "similar" metals so due to the laws of physics or metallurgy or whatever, wear is guaranteed. Not many folks realize this and I've seen loads of used bronze gears for sale at swap meets that would still be in the engines if they'd only done this simple mod.

Understood and yes, I agree it is easily observed. If you take a minute and pull the intermediate shaft out
and have a look at the bottom You'll probably also notice the parts marking each other up.

This seems to do no harm, but it is far from optimum.

There are so many other things to be concerned with that this often goes overlooked even though many of us are aware.

I guess the wear on the gear teeth just seems to be more important! Also the shaft wears, from the debris, I imagine.

At least the rest of the valvetrain still looks nice after 1000 miles.

Does your bushing have oil grooves on the top flange?

So do....... some don’t.

I used a valve spring shim for a motorcycle on my small block build and in two years have never had any shiny brass in my oil or filter. IIRC it was .014' and I didn't cut anything.

I haven't seen issue with the bushing to gear wear on my small block. I was surprised on my last inspection to discover that the bronze bushing in the block was totally smoked. I replaced it and added a small hole to the galley plug to give the area a direct shot of oil. I have no idea if this will help or if you can do this on a big block/Hemi.

I like the idea of the torrington washer between the two parts. A very simple solution to an ongoing annoyance. Thanks

Yes, it does.

I have noticed shiny particles in the oil drained from my vacuum pump puke tank every time I drain it, twice a day at the races on my new motor so I decided to look at the gear, it was a new Mopar brand and it is making metal since start up evidently
This motor has a set of Jesel paired shaft rocker arm set up on the 440-1 heads so I don't want it failing, I reused the one out of the old motor that has 5 + years of racing on it with no issues or evidence of wear on it yet
I'll watch it carefully now and hope it doesn't start wearing against this camshaft

I am using a .005 stainless shim between the gear and bushing. I started thinking about a shim and posted here , another member replied and has been doing this for some time and has not had any issues using one. I cannot remember the other member. I put one in in Feb. I haven't had the gear out to check it yet. My last Milodon bronze gear (prior to .005 shim) and the bushing where eating each other up. A place called the Shim Shack made up the shims for me, cost was not to bad, as I remember I had 6 run.

thanks, that looks like a great solution for that issue.

Of course, it doesn't solve the issue of the gear wearing against the camshaft. I might give the coated steel gear a try, and keep an eye on it.

Well, I submitted a request for a quote and they came back at $10. each.. Not money well spent in my opinion when a 25 cent Torrington washer will do !!!

Bet it would cost me more than $10 to have someone machine my gear to use the $.25 washer, since I don't have the equipment to do it myself.