Signs of excessive or abnormal bronze gear wear?

If I posted close-up pics of the bronze gear used when we did 25-30 dyno pulls on my 440, could people check 'em out for signs of excessive or abnormal wear? It's my first experience using this type of gear and I'm not exactly sure what to look for to indicate wear issues with the limited run time. Thanks - Brad

After a few dyno pulls the gear should just be shiny. If you have any galling or wear then I'd think you are headed for trouble. I've seen both after the initial dyno test. Usually the bronze gears are just shiny but sometimes they show actual wear marks.

I need to take some good pics and post 'em. I don't know what's "normal" and what's " " at this point.

Probably not your case id hope but extreme wear in a short time of hard running in my case showed a cracked block.

A good idea is to make note of the slack (movement) between the drive gear and the cam when new. Then it's easy to detect wear if the thing is getting sloppy, by popping the distributor and checking with a large screwdriver or tool.

Or visually compare used to a new one.

How much end play did you put in??.. does it have a cam button ?

Sure!

Well, we can try.

Post away.

It's either an MP or a Milodon gear & shaft assembly; I bought one of each and don't recall at the moment which one I installed. I also bought a 440 Source bronze gear & shaft, but something about the teeth on that gear looked "different" than the other two, so it's still sitting unused in parts box.

Cam button = Yes; it's one of AndyF's rollerized buttons along w/ his timing cover

End play = .008", IIRC (tried a few different cover gaskets to get it w/in recommended range)

Also have a collar on the distributor shaft to keep the gear assembly from lifting up (.015" free play, IIRC)

Might get a chance to get pics tonight; otherwise, maybe late tomorrow.

Thanks - Brad

you'll notice a groove starting to cut the bronze where it meshes with the cam gear, if you can fell it it's starting to wear out. I've seen them last a few years and then again wear out in two weeks.

Didn't notice anything I'd call a groove, but the shiny pattern on the bronze where the gear & cam teeth mesh was definitely not the full width of the teeth. I was looking down into the lifter valley w/ a light, but will pull out the oil pump drive for pics.

I always compare the gear wear to the inside most area of the teeth. I noticed some weird gear wear on my small block on this last inspection and when I put it in the block to check how much slop it had it turns out the bushing in the block was shot. It hadn't been in very long but it was very worn so I changed it and put another gear I had in. I have always just dropped the gear in and never checked that bushing, I am glad I noticed it before it chewed up another gear.

Brad your oil filter will tell you a lot about what is happening to that brass gear.

bushings can be a big issue. I've got a bunch of new ones that are too loose to use.

Silly question: Why are you using a bronze gear in a street car instead of the melonized gear?

Here's something worth noting:

steel or cast iron crank ... babbit bearings
iron cylinder walls ... aluminum pistons
iron cam ... steel gear
steel intermediate shaft ... bronze bushing

All are dissimilar metals in contact with each other.

Now then ... steel cam ... bronze gear Here's the problem: bronze gear and bronze bushing

The majority of wear will occur on the bottom of the gear. The solution is a thin steel (.030") washer between the gear and the bushing.

Wear from tooth contact should be virtually nil. In the event there is noticeable wear from the cam teeth you have a MAJOR problem for which the only solution is dressing the teeth on the cam. Good luck with that !!!

I had a camshaft that would mow right through the gears I actually ended up taking some sandpaper and rounding the edges of the gear on the cam.. man night and day difference

In no particular order...

I have an oil filter cutting tool, but need to locate it after things got stuffed "wherever" when we had to deal with a basement plumbing leak last year.

I feel no detectable looseness between the bronze gear and the cam gear. I do think that I can push the oil pump drive shaft forward & backward maybe. 015" +/- due to bushing wear.

Dwayne Porter and I spoke about the melonized gear option a couple years ago when I was collecting parts. I run a high-volume oil pump, and the open spring loads with the new roller cam are about 600#s. If something about my combination does result in excessive wear on the treated steel gear, that's going to put more dangerous sh!t in my engine than the softer bronze gear, so I took his advice and decided to play it safe at this time.

We also talked about the possibility of sharp edges on the cam gear causing wear, which is why I used a small wire brush with a Dremel on the cam gear before installation. Not sure if it would have been better to use a small grinding stone and bevel the edges of the teeth, though.

I took a number of pictures tonight. However, the image sizes may be too large to upload directly from my phone. If they're too big, I'll have to shrink 'em some on my laptop and attach them tomorrow.

First image load attempt from my phone...

View of gear & cam before removing oil pump drive.

Contact pattern on bronze gear visible...

Cam gear with oil pump shaft removed.

Slightly different view of cam gear.

Bronze gear wear pattern from one direction of rotation...

Bronze gear wear pattern from the other direction...

There seems to be a lot of optical reflection on the bronze gear. Hard to determine if there is significant cause for concern. What are the dry spots on the cam gear? They almost look like the bronze gear is chattering on the cam. May be just optics also. Can you visually see the same patterns in the gears that are displayed in the pics?

I posted the first set of pics to highlight the wear/contact areas in direct light.

These next ones were taken without flash (ambient florescent light), FWIW.

And...

I don't like the looks of the wear in the bushing.

I’d put a few hundred miles on it, then look at the gear again.

The teeth on the cam gear don’t have the nice chamfer on them like cams of days gone by, but at least they don’t have a sharp edge.

That is an odd looking mark on the bushing, did you use the installation tool and burnish it?

Joe

That could be the issue I have. The new bushing i put in went in easy and the install tool was easy to pull out.

Looks as if the gear meshing forces are pushing the intermediate shaft forward.

Could the geometry of the cam or shaft gear be off somehow??
Was the oil pump allowed to find it's alignment with the shaft before tightening??

Just thinking out loud...

Joe

PS, if the intermediate shaft gear was pinned to the shaft a little high or low??
Can you measure and compare?

Brad here’s one I pulled out of the hemi after a couple years. Hard to see but it was slowly wearing into the teeth. You can see how the what I call edge is worn from looking down from top. The edges are very sharp and there’s a little burr on the bottom edge. This is a solid roller with a melling HV pump. I changed to a melonized gear from Hughes a couple of years ago and pulled it out last fall and it and the cam showed zero wear. I know they say never use on a used cam but never say never I’ve didn’t have any problems.

Mike

Can't recall which of the last three shops that have had their hands on my block are responsible for the bushing installation. Fair to presume that isn't a job one does AFTER the bottom end has been reassembled?

I'd been wondering if I should pull the cam and add the bevel to the gear teeth before putting it all back together...

I have other oil pump shaft & gear assemblies for comparison, in case the MP piece shown above isn't "right" for some reason.

Cam gear and the melonized gear holding up, despite going against two of the warnings for using the melonized gear?

As long as you have the gear out, check the cam's forward movement once more to
see if the cam button is holding the right clearance.

Joe

Cam gear and the melonized gear holding up, despite going against two of the warnings for using the melonized gear? [/quote]

Yep They also say not to use the bronze gear with a HV pump so kinda between a rock and a hard place. Dave told me if I was going to use it on a used cam to remove and totally clean the cam first but I couldn't see anything to clean off so I just installed it. Very few miles on this cam. I'm sure if you had an old cam with excessive wear it might eat the gear. If I was selling them I would put warnings on them too but years ago I talked to a crane tech and he told me they never saw any problems running a steel gear on a BB Mopar roller with a standard oil pump but the chevy and ford had trouble,so who knows for sure?

One of the reasons I'm so interested in this thread is we have a 505 similar build ready for
the dyno, so this bronze gear topic has always been a nagging question.

Our old stuff has hydraulic/flat tappet so this is new territory.

Joe

Give Dave Hughes a call. 309 745 9558. Don't be surprised he'll probably tell you you don't need a HV pump and not to use a bronze gear. He isn't shy. Lol

Hey Brad...I think there was a thread over on ST several years ago by now where a guy was having issues with gear wear and they eventually found the gear on the cam was ground incorrectly. That's IF my memory isn't jacked up. May be worth a search over there just to verify what I recall.

Also, you can change the bushing without a taking it apart. The best bet for that bushing is to just eat the money for the correct bushing tool and buy the undersized bushing. The tool then installs the bushing and sizes the I.D. at the same time and you don't have to worry about the bushing being loose. I fought that for awhile. Then I bought the tool and stopped using the pre-sized bushings.

I've seen tools for installing the bushing, but what's required to remove one from an assembled engine?

I thread them and pull them out with a slide hammer when the engine is together. If you do, make damn sure you thread the whole bushing and screw the slide hammer to the bottom of the bushing.,otherwise you just pull the top of it off. And then I say a few cuss words, throw the tool, take a break and start over.

That's what works best for me. YMMV

Is the engine installed in the car? I just took off the oil pump.
Also had a friend who ran a bronze gear and lost all the teeth after a year of street driving put in a melonized gear. No problems since.

On another thread you mentioned the older Crane roller I picked up recently came from the era when they were a little nicer to intermediate shaft gears.
At the time, it went in one ear and out the other. I just checked my picture, and I get it now.

Never gave the cam gear a second thought before. Thanks.

From what I can see in the pics, Brad's gear doesn't look horribly bad.

I was told at one time that crane use to supply roller cores to other companies and you could tell by the gold color between the lobes that they were the good ones compared to the ones that are black.

I really don’t know for sure but I’m sure Fast and others have forgotten more than I ever knew and can answer that question?

I would not worry..it needs some street miles and then have a look at it..I have a drawer with 20 or more unhappy oil pump drives.
I'll get my son to bring in a bunch,I'll snap some pictures and post them....some of them you can shave with..

I'll bet money that the gear you have is NOT a Milidon or one of the early Mopar brand that had the roll pins installed in them instead of the solid retaining pin yours has
The one I'm having trouble with is a early Mopar brand and it has the bright colored roll pin with the ends mashed, the two Milidons I'm using have a black coated colored roll pin in them

I've run the same bronze gear I bought used. 0w30 JR1 oil. High volume pump. No issues at 500 passes.
Doug

From the factory service manual:

I bought the tool to remove and reinstall the bushing. One thing most people overlook is to fill the bushing opening with redline synthetic gear oil and squeeze it between your finger and thumb until it oozes out through the pours of the sintered brass. Then press it in and burnish it with the tool.

Another idea is to use the treated steel gear on a new cam. If you can't do that, have the gear cryogenically treated .and coat it with synthetic disc brake grease.

That bushing tool makes me smile every time I have used it.

Currently looking into sources for both the extraction & installation tools... Looks like about $200 +/-, from what I've seen so far.

All I can tell you is what I've shown is an MP part purchased a few years ago from Hughes; I don't know when "early" means in this case.

The Milodon I bought is still in its original package, and I haven't bothered to look any further for the 440 Source part that is "somewhere" in my parts boxes.

Dig around a bit Brad because I was looking about a year ago for a friend and I found them for about a hundred bucks.

I use a flat washer that I ground down to barely fit the bottom OD of the bushing to drive it out from the oil pump side of the block using a Ford F.E. motor pushrod to drive the old one out, it barely fits into the hole in the block
I then use a stock oil pump drive gear to install the new bushings by sliding them onto the shaft and then drive it in the block
No problems yet with these methods

I changed mine on my small block without pulling the pan. I have a harbor freight bearing puller kit and it worked perfect. My Dad has the install tool so I was able to use that.

$100 from Hughes

$99.00 at Jegs , just over 100 from Summit . Proform brand tool 66488


Tex

I should have been more clear and said it was looking like about $200 (give or take) for both tools combined.

The HF puller approach looks like a good idea. I found a video on YouTube last night showing someone pulling a bushing w/ a small OTC-brand puller, so I kinda had that idea in mind already. Nice to see that something I can buy 10 minutes from my house will work.

I think the installation tool is a better approach than driving in the bushing with an intermediate shaft alone. Seems like not using the tool to stabilize the driver in the distributor opening is more likely to result in the bushing not going in straight, which means the shaft won't be truly parallel to the bushing's inner surface, thus wearing it out faster.

You can pound the bushing in with an axe and it'll still go in in straight. It's getting it to seat in the bore so it doesn't spin after use that requires the special tool.

I just did this on Sunday, that video on you tube is what made me think to grab the puller.

Trust me on using a stock used oil pump drive gear and shaft to install the bushing, it flat works great
I've install hundreds of them that way with no bad results, so far
Take a look at the bushings, all the ones I've installed have a taper on the oil pump end and a relief around the flange on top so the taper helps center the bushing to start with and after it is in 1/4 to 1/2 inch it is going in straight, the flange protect the inner bushing from collapsing and interfering on the clearances like I use to have happen when I drove them in with a bronze drift only
If you wanted to use a long bolt or a piece of althread to suck the bushing in with nuts and flat washers that will work also
Lots of choices on this

I do have a nice used shaft if I choose to do the install w/o the tool.

For anyone that has the Proform tool mentioned above, is it machined properly to not ream out the bushing excessively? Some of the Proform stuff I've had in the past has been pretty sloppy on fit & finish, so I don't trust anything from that company. The other option is to hunt down a "genuine" MIller C-3053, but it may be more expensive.

Good news: I have a Harbor Freight 20% Off coupon for one item good through the end of the month. I can get their bushing puller kit for about $60, and like that idea better than using the "official" tool that screws into the old bushing, since the puller won't be cutting threads that could leave brass debris in the engine.

A member here or on one of the Charger forums loaned me the MOPAR tool
for use with the correct MOPAR bushing.
The installation portion sizes the bushing OD for an interference fit and the burnishing part sizes the ID.

I've done them before without the tool too, BUT... I felt a lot better about it after using the correct method per Ma.

My 2 cents, Joe

Or you can get a gage pin from McMaster Carr and drive it through the bushing after it is installed to burnish it. I took the dim off of the distributor shaft and added in the clearance and used the .4860 pin to do the job.

I am pretty sure I have the tool around here somewhere. If I locate it I will loan it to you. I never used it. I have installed the bushing with a old gear before.

Let us see what's in the oil filter?

Still trying to figure out where I stored the filter cutting tool...

It is right where you left it

Maybe Porky Pig hid it,,,,,

and when you find it, it will be in the last place you look......

You put it in a very safe place.,.........I can never find something in the garage when I look for it.

That's a tool everyone with a race engine needs in their trailer. The other option is a System One or like oil filter that is easily taken apart. Their is no reason to diagnose a problem that may or may not exist. Again JMO.

Brad, maybe you put the filter cutter in the trailer?

That must be where it is!

Perhaps, but I managed to find it anyway... along with my missing trans tailshaft plug (now sitting beside the OTHER one I bought when I couldn't find it), a fuel pump rebuild kit to go along with the 2nd one I bought (Take a guess why), my rivet gun, touch-up paint for two cars I don't own anymore (yet I still can'tfind it for one I do), and a few additional "Oh, so that's where they were..." items.

Now I gotta carve out time to use the cutter... and I bet it's a messy job, having never done it before.

Getting the outer cover off is easy, cutting the pleated paper element out of the end holder is the harder part,
That needs to be done so you can look into the bottom of all the pleats. Do you have a sharp knife or long pointed box cutter? They both work well
New motors always make metal

Classic. Same thing happens to me so much it no longer affects me. I just know to buy two, maybe three of everything and put them in different places. I end up buying that many anyway. I save time that way.

Sorry, no update. Typical BradH family weekend of "surprises" jacked up most of my plans.

brad here is a pic.

Mine now! And it's a real Miller C-3053, too.

Got the puller kit from HF on Saturday, so the tools are on hand.

What I don't have is a new bushing... is this something I should be able to find locally?

And, no, I still haven't cut open the filter.

From what I remember the mopar ones needed burnishing, aftermarket ones didn`t. That is if IIRC which is hit and miss.LOL BTW, which puller did you get from HF?

The kit I got is advertised as a bearing puller; the other kit is more "universal", but doesn't have the expanding collet(?) that can be inserted into the hole and tightened to fit the bushing ID.

The MP bushing needs burnishing, the Pioneer brand bushing apparently doesn't (but I have no idea how good the sizing is), and the Dura-bond part I found listed doesn't specify one way or another.

I'm not 100% sure, but I thought the "correct " bushing to use with the tool comes from a dealership.
The others have tolerances made to be universal and may not be optimum for all.

Just my failing memory....Joe

The only one that I could find locally today was a Pioneer. I don't know how much tighter it would get around the shaft after installation, but it's way too loose now. I think I'll order some Dura-Bonds because they're quite a bit less expensive than what I see the MP bushing listed for.

Brad how much did you spend on the tools?

I have always bought the mopar bushings, but I have about the best dealership for perfomance parts in the west (Glendora Dodge) close by.

I use the Pioneer brand, never had a loose ones yet (100+ so far)with no cam installed and driving it into place with a stock iron gear and shaft
I have seen wear marks on the shafts after running the motors on a engine dyno with a Milidon gear and shaft and the Milidon cast aluminum oil pump using their two external oil line and swinging pickup system

It will compress enough after installation. I imagine there are hundreds of thousands installed and running with no issues. But hey, maybe you got that one in a million that popped out wrong.

I'm into the tools for about $125.

I'll keep the Pioneer on hand as a backup, but just ordered a 5-pack of Dura-Bond which do require broaching. I want to leave less to chance on the sizing when using the bronze gear.