Hi folks
Opened the oil filter the day before the race tomorrow as it has been awhile. I used to do it after every day of racing last season when the motor was fresh . Never anything much. Talking 3-5 passes.

This season I got lazy . Changed the oil as normal often but not the filter. There are about 40 passes on this filter. Motor has maybe 60 .

This looks scary to me . Thoughts from experience?

There is one other spot with a heavy deposit , but having a hard time loading pics from the track

looks like brass gear to me...

Good call........ and easy to check.

Thanks guys.
Tomorrow I will be a spectator. I’ll drag it home after the race and get the gear out and let you know what I find .

Thanks for the opinion and giving me hope .

Gary

i think bronze gear going away.

Pulled it out
Gear teeth look good . Bottom side of gear seams to have recess with a sharp edge worn in it

Good of you to cut the filter open!

What does the bushing look like in the block?

do you have a collar on the distributor shaft trying to control end play?

End play is not the culprit ... you have "similar" metals in friction contact with each other. If you'd had a thin steel torrington washer between the gear and the bushing you wouldn't have had this problem.

And FWIW, that gear is still usable - just machine off the ridge and put a torrington washer between the two. The fact the teeth aren't worn means its getting along just fine with your cam.

Ok I think
I’m home now and can get a pick of it. One thing that did strike me was it appears to be flush and maybe even slightly recessed into the block . Not sure if I have any picks from the build that would show it

Thanks for all the thoughts

No

So when I had the gear out today I put some ot the debris chips next to it and they don’t look to be the same color . The debris looks copper to me

Is there or should there normally be a steel washer under the gear? Could I have missed it in the rebuild? And if I did would it take this long to show itself?

factory never used any shim between the gear and bushing. they had dissimilar metals. they only other place to get copper shavings i can think of is the crank thrust bearing. the thrust on the cam and intermediate shaft gears is down, but a worn bushing will allow for some thrust towards the rear of the engine in combination with the downward pressure.

Pics in the hole
Hard to see but there is a symmetrical star or radial pater in the iron around the bushing
Thanks all for looking

I think you know what that means.

Although, the bushing is usually more copper colored than the gear.

See if you can get a measurement of how thick the flange on the bushing is, and compare to a new one to get an idea of how much is worn off it.

sometimes you have to look at how far down the shaft is pressed into the gear. it's possible for the distributor and gear to go solid if the shaft is too high in the gear and the distributor tightened down. see if you have another gear, iron or bronze, to compare against. also if that may be the case it should show up at the collar on the bottom of the distributor housing. i've had issues where i thought the shaft was pressed too deep, so it may be possible for it not to be pressed deep enough.

Factory never installed roller cams !! Solid and hydraulic cams are cast iron, gears were all steel - dissimilar metals. Steel gears against a bronze bushing - dissimilar metals. Hence no wear issues.