Distributor gear goes bye-bye....

[DRJDVM's '69]

Well I messed with my carb today, took the car out for a spin and it felt great.....was cruisng down the freeway at 70 MPH and 2000 RPM and bam, pop and the car dies....pull over and it wont start...as I'm cranking no oil pressure so I dont crank long.....

I had gotten on it alittle earlier but was not bashing it at the time it went "bam".... I though I had screwed up the carb setting so bad, something went wrong....

AAA tow home and start pulling stuff apart....everything looks good up top, the timing marks seem to line up, turns over by hand, but no oil pressure if I crank it.....

Decide to pull the distributor and a good portion of the gear is gone..... mostly on one side....

So drained the oil and cut the filter....some fine metal in the filter. The car has no oil bypass so its 100% through the filter and I was using a K&N so hopefully it contained the metal.

I still think pulling the motor and cleaning and checking is the best choice.......PITA but safest thing.....

Its a MSD Pro-billet with the stock gear since Comp Cams said I didnt need to use a bronze gear for my cam.

Anyone else had this happen ????

[another69]

Have you tried turning the oil pump over by hand? If it's jammed with debris or seized, I could see it taking out the drive gear. Just a thought...

[ponchopwr70]

I had this happen last year. I was running a hei with a stock gear and a hyd flat tappet. I was on the highway bang died in the left lane. I ended up putting a brand new coated gear and was fine. I pulled the distributor every 50 miles for 300 miles and the mesh was good.

[Norwoodx55]

I had the exact thing happen to me with a Comp cam. It was a billet solid roller with the pressed on cast gear. Wiped half of my MSD gear off and left me stranded at an intersection. Engine only had about 40 miles on it. Comp examined it and determined that it was a bad core that they sourced from Crane, and it got through their quality control. They ground me a new cam and that was that, thanks a lot! I pulled the motor for inspection. Found lots of gear bits and piesces in the pan. I checked the rod and main bearings and everything was OK. Once back together, I put in new oil and filter and did a mega oil priming session. I ran the priming tool with the drill for 5 minutes, rotated the engine 90*, primed 5 min., rotated etc. I rotated the engine 4 times and primed for 20 minutes to try and completely flush the oiling system. Changed oil and filter again and have been running it since.
Brett

[nicks67camaro]

mine decided to chew its self up MSD pro billet with comp cams solid roller didn't agree with each other. comp cams said it was the dist. gear. msd said it was the cam. hmm....So i decided to polish the end of the cam and use a comp cams polymer gear (summit racing ~ $110 last time I checked). I check the timing 2x a year and note if it changes. I inspect my filter on oil changes and there is just a little material. I see the gear as a 3 year item. cheaper than building a motor. oh if you are really worried about damage due to lack of oil check the farthest main bearing cap first itwould be the one that would be deprived of oil. If that looks good chances are your okay.