Another ford racing 427 eating cam gear

[blykins]

Glad you're happy man.

There are several things that need to be noted about cam gears and distributor gears.

1. The materials must match and you want the distributor gear to be the sacrificial gear.
2. You can never assume that a gear is pressed onto the distributor shaft the correct amount. There is a spec for this, and on an MSD, it needs to be 3.995-4.005". That's measured from the flange to the bottom of the gear with all the endplay removed. You can not press on a new gear, just line the holes up, and roll with it. That distance needs to be checked every single time.
3. On a SBF, the distributor and cam gears get oil from the front cam bearing feed. I've seen aftermarket blocks where this feed has not been drilled or the cam bearing covers the feed. If that happens, the only oil the gears will get will be a little splash.

[68pony]

good info brent I will pass that on to my guy here.

[Tom Wells]

68pony,

Sigh...

You are not alone: Tom challenges the Butcher! Dist gear failure report...

Note that this happened in 2002 with a Ford crate motor.

Note also that Ford paid ZERO for the rebuild, which cost me over $2000US.

Ask me if I'll trust Ford again

Tom

[dallas_]

I had a cam gear failure on my Ford Racing crate motor. I guess I'm fortunate that they took care of it completely. (Well, other than having to remove it, crate it up and reinstall it when the repairs were done.)

I'm no expert on oil, but it's my understanding that the viscosity of a 20/50 weight oil is really high at startup temperatures. Don't know if that contributed in any way, but you may want to consult with Brent about which oil he recommends when you get it all back together.

[Luce]

I did my first oil change a few weeks ago after my cam replacement. I had a little bit of metal on the magnetic drain plugs and I had that OH $hit not again feeling where you want to loosen a fuel fitting and throw a lit match at it.

So I gathered my courage and pulled the dizzy. It must have been the last few bits of the old gear floating around. I saved the filter, but haven't cut it open yet. It's so messy. I'll do it sometime.

On the up side, the gear was absolutely drenched and dripping with oil, and both gears have shiny mating surfaces, but no signs of missing material, so I think the lubing channels are open and functioning. It sure runs good! The new cam still has plenty of lope for me, but better vacuum at idle and pulls like a train all the way up to 6200 where I set the limiter.

On my motor, even if Ford offered to repair it if I removed, crated, shipped and reinstalled, I would say no thanks. Changing the cam out was much easier that removing and reinstalling the engine would have been, and I know those monkeys didn;t touch it! If I just let them fix it, I don't think I would be able to drive the car again for fear of being stranded somewhere.

Catch the problems before they go catastrophic and you'll be OK. It has what looks like good short block parts. I haven't put enough miles on it yet to comment on oil consumption, but it doesn't smoke enough to embarrass me, so the oil consumption isn't a problem for me.

[68pony]

Originally Posted by Luce

I did my first oil change a few weeks ago after my cam replacement. I had a little bit of metal on the magnetic drain plugs and I had that OH $hit not again feeling where you want to loosen a fuel fitting and throw a lit match at it.

So I gathered my courage and pulled the dizzy. It must have been the last few bits of the old gear floating around. I saved the filter, but haven't cut it open yet. It's so messy. I'll do it sometime.

On the up side, the gear was absolutely drenched and dripping with oil, and both gears have shiny mating surfaces, but no signs of missing material, so I think the lubing channels are open and functioning. It sure runs good! The new cam still has plenty of lope for me, but better vacuum at idle and pulls like a train all the way up to 6200 where I set the limiter.

On my motor, even if Ford offered to repair it if I removed, crated, shipped and reinstalled, I would say no thanks. Changing the cam out was much easier that removing and reinstalling the engine would have been, and I know those monkeys didn;t touch it! If I just let them fix it, I don't think I would be able to drive the car again for fear of being stranded somewhere.

Catch the problems before they go catastrophic and you'll be OK. It has what looks like good short block parts. I haven't put enough miles on it yet to comment on oil consumption, but it doesn't smoke enough to embarrass me, so the oil consumption isn't a problem for me.

We droped the sump and found no metal,i was lucky we nipped it early as the car gave me no sighns of what was happening, it was just my mechanic thought it was strange he could not set timing properly other than that the car felt fine, but this was a ticking time bomb.

[Luce]

Mine is megasquirted, and I was triggering off the dizzy and controlling fuel and spark. As I tuned and drove, it would seem better, then worse, better then worse. I was advised that triggering off the dizzy with the centrifugal advance still active ( I was trying to use MS to fudge in a little vacuum advance, but let the dizzy do the mechanical) would wreak havoc on the timing prediction algorithm.

So I then added a trigger wheel on the crank that masked the problem for another 500 miles, until the dizzy was jumping around enough to hit the wrong cylinder at high RPMs. I scratched my head over this one for another 100 miles until it jumped time and wouldn't start.

I lost the entire gear in the pan. I replaced the oil pump, but after disassembling the old one, it looked fine with only a tiny minor mark here and there. I never saw a drop in oil pressure so I guess the bearings are OK.

It's better to fix it and move on... just share your experience and help dink their market share. Honestly, the real problem is in the documentation... or lack of. Had the engine came with a build sheet, I would not have changed the iron gear that came on the new MDS dizzy for a steel one and all would be well. Instead, 2 months after my engine was delivered, I had to look on Ford Racing's website and see somewhere "billet roller cam"