I have tore down my engine and found the cam gear teeth almost completly stript off, no wonder it felt like something broke .
Now my question is could the valve spring on the head cause this? They are 330lb at lift i believe chevy small block springs with the inner coil. This was a metal gear not the plastic one. The noise it made was similar to a bearing going out i had switched out the water pump thinking that was it guess i should have got farther into it.
No wonder it was getting progressivly slower

Any help with this would be appriciated.

Tristan F

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Even in moderation i am excessive!

330 lbs open is way too much. With the little cam you had you could have easily used stock valve springs. Still, I would not expect the cam sprocket to be worn that badly. I'd be looking for oiling and maybe metallurgical problems.

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Joshua

The 330 may be wrong i'm trying to find the paper work for the head, after 3 moves it's hard find anything.

I'm pulling the cam we'll see if it spun a bearing as well....

Lucky i have everything to fix it. Just want to get it back to being reliable.

Tristan F

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Even in moderation i am excessive!

Here is the gear

The bearings are good so it may be the gear was bad. Took five years of running the crap out of it to burn it up :shrug: .
The erson 270 is the first cam Mark was running and has been "Massaged by Doug" so hope it helps. Now to bolt on the head Doug did for me and maybe put in the Aries high comp pistons i have . I need to do the math and see if the compression will be low enuff to run 10 psi from the supercharger....

Tristan F

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Even in moderation i am excessive!

Another shot....


Just a heads up this sounded like a bearing going out so may be easyer to pull the cam cover first before pulling engine to check the bearings, After checking water pump first...

TF

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Even in moderation i am excessive!

Triston
Try looking to see if you can find where Doc posted how to get more lub to the timming gear. The picture looks like it might not have been getting enough.

Richard

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Part of Tyrde-Browne Racing

Found it Thanks Richard! Out to drill it right now...

TF

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Even in moderation i am excessive!

Could you please post a link to where you found it?
Thanks!

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Even in moderation i am excessive!

I would say this is pretty unusual, even 330# valve springs should not cause a failure like this. Things to check: Are the two gears properly aligned? Is the oil slinger properly installed between the crank gear and the balancer, otherwise like Josh says it looks like lack of lubrication or a metalurgical problem. Doesn't the #1 main bearing provide oiling to the timing chain? Maybe #4 and #1 bearing inserts are on the wrong journal.

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If you didn't drive it there, it's not a street car.

I took off a cam gear like your because my #5 piston melted out of too lean condition and too much timing advance, then the piston started to get stuck in the cilinder wall, thats how my cam gear ended up the very same way ... hopefully you didn't any onther issues with your engine like I did.

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Martin Zappettini
1974 Dodge Polara RT 318cu.
1965 Valiant III Coronado Slant Six 6-Pack (soon!!)