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Hot Cam Ate Distibuter Gear!

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Old 01-29-2002, 01:19 PM
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Hot Cam Ate Distibuter Gear!

Well, it did.
Why would it do this? GM says it will work fine with a stock distibuter gear, right. Are the stock ones bronze? Cause i think the Hot Cam gear is steel.
From the looks of it, its been eating away at it since the engine was fired. All the teeth have alot of wear, and then 1/3 of them sheered off.
I can't think of another reason why this would happen. The cam was not walking, the thust plate is on correctly and all.
What should i do, get a steel distributer gear?
Anybody else had this problem with the Hot Cam?
This distributer gear worked perfectly with my last Comp cam, it had no wear when i took it out, now its chewed to hell.
I'll try to get some pics up.
From what i can see, the cam gear is OK, i can't turn the egine while looking down the intake though, but it looks complete.
Help me out.
thanx
Old 01-29-2002, 01:53 PM
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Heres some pix, if they work!





hope they came up.
Old 01-29-2002, 02:01 PM
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You might have to right click and show picture, Webshots isn't working too well lately.
Anyway, I was turning the dis. shaft and it has some up/down play in it, and it does bind up a little when it goes up, not alot, but you can feel it slow some.
Say the engine is spinning 5 grand and it it does this, could it sieze temporarily and the cam eat the teeth off? Sounds possible to me. Maybe i need a new distributer.
I had pulled it apart once a long time ago to clean it cause it was doing the same thing, slight binding. this dis. has about 130,000 miles on it.
What daya think?:lala:
I had to put in the cloud.
Old 01-29-2002, 03:41 PM
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Was your old cam a roller? Factory roller cam cars have a smaller diamiter distributor shaft and the original gear should work fine the older nonroller's had a larger shaft and a new gear is required. I think the gear you need is P/N 1104067.
Old 01-29-2002, 04:06 PM
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Car: 84 SVO
Engine: Volvo headed 2.3T
Transmission: WCT5
Axle/Gears: 8.8" 3.73
you need a distributor from a 87 newer TPI with a roller cam, not sure if the TBI distributors (87 up) have the correct gear.
Old 01-29-2002, 10:37 PM
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Yeah, the dis. is from a original roller cam car. It worked fine with the stock roller and a Comp roller.
I think this is what happened. The shaft was binding in the dis. from crap that gets in there, and would sieze while spinning on the cam gear. When it did this, the cam gear ate away at it some till it freed up. I could tell the car would bog every now and then, but thought it was electrical. It was the geat putting the extra load on the engine, must have been alot if i could really feel it.
After enough of this it jammed one last time and the cam gear just sheered off the already eaten teeth!
I took the dis apart and cleaned it all out, now it spins very freely. I am gonna put a new dis. gear on and check it after a few days to see if it is chewing it up, hopefully this will solve it, i can't afford a new dis. right now. This dis. had a lesser case of this problem about 20,000 miles ago, I cleaned it then and it worked fine.
We'll see how it goes.
Old 01-30-2002, 12:19 AM
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Car: 1989 Camaro-1LE
Engine: TPI(s)
Transmission: 5 speed (MM5, MK6)
Axle/Gears: 3.45, 3.73
I have the same problem. I installed a ZZ3 cam and it ate the dist gear! I believe my problem is from the high volume oil pump as it puts more load on the dist gear. In 1995 GM released a close tolerance dist gear with the vortec engines. It was designed for those engines with the high volume pumps. I have the article somewhere if you are interested. I am going to just order the gear and replace it.

IF you use a bronze gear, it will wear out very fast. Bronze is softer than iron.

Mark.
Old 01-30-2002, 07:56 AM
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Car: '84 Fiero ('01 GA interior)
Engine: '96 4.0 Aurora
Transmission: '96 4T80E
I just had my distributor out ('89 TBI) and it showed no unusual wear with the LT4 HC. Even with my LT1 intake and the distributor mounting problems (see other post)
Old 01-30-2002, 10:59 PM
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I have a high volume oil pump too. Its a Summit 70 psi pump.
It was reused from my last engine and it caused no problems with that setup and a comp cam.
I think my distributer shaft was binding in the housing, and that put the extra stress on the gear. I had this problem 2 years ago when i put the 305 in, I noticed it wouldn't spin freely. I cleaned it then and it lasted 2 years till now. I took it apart and cleaned it again today, had some junk in there. It spins nice and feely now.
Put a new gear on it and it is running fine. I will check it in a week and see how it is wearing.
I will probobly get a new distibuter with ball bearings (MSD) if it turns out this is the culprit.
thanx guys.
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