Does the 64 model year have plastic teeth on the cam gear form the factory?
I'm trying to find out without tearing into it.
I'm looking into replacing my timing set in the 64 Dart IF it has plastic teeth on the cam gear like I suspect.
Being 56 years old and at 90K I don't want to risk it any longer if this indeed has the plastic.
There's NO chance that it has been replaced in the past since I owned it from 65K up.

I had just taken apart a '66 motor; its timing sprocket was an all-steel gear. I think the nylon-tooth version was later.

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Matt Cramer
1966 Dodge Dart turbo / EFI project

My grandmother's '68 Coronet had nylon teeth, whick broke off and stopped .up the oil pump screen.

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“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

V8's seem to do far worse with nylon gears. My 225 had the original chain and gears...51 years old and 132K miles and looked like it was in no danger of failure, still.

Granny's white with blue interior, 4 door Coronet 440 had a 225 in it. It ate it's own teeth, still ran but lit it's oil light. I fixed it. That was 40 years ago.

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“Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

64s had metal teeth, as far as I have seen. I would not personally tear into a good running motor to do this change, even if they were nylon. I have seen iron (or some kind of iron or steel) replacement ones tear up in 30k miles.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

The 30K motor in my 65 Belvedere had all steel. I put about another 10K miles on it before pulling it due to a cracked block (apparently froze one winter). That chain was still in great shape, just as taut as a new one.
The 100k+ engine from my 79 Volare was plastic toothed. It was in good shape, especially for plastic, but definitely worn. It was difficult to say if the chain was loose from stretch or from the plastic gear wear.

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-MattMan
LEANED & MEAN

Every '64-'66 slant I've pulled apart (five, I think) had an all metal cam gear (not sure if steel or cast iron). I don't know when the change was made, but I've seen the aluminum gear with plastic teeth on two or three '70 and later blocks. For what it's worth, none of them were broken.

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Somehow I ended up owning three 1964 slant six A-bodies. I race one of them.
Escape Velocity Racing

Would be metal gear but if you tearing into the timing chain go a littler extra and swap the camshaft in my 64 swaped it all out with motor still in the car there is an article on here about it.