225 Distributor Drive Gear Issue

the boys 70 with a delco distributor just lost the roll pin to the drive gear. the gear shows some wear is there supposed to be a gasket between the distributor and the timing cover? it appears that the gear may have had pressure on it thus causing the failure.

 

Just an o ring. Likely the timing cover has gotten sloppy at the oil pump gears. Not an uncommon issue with these.

 

Just checked the pump shaft no noticeable play pump turns fine. The motor has less than 25000 miles on it as a Jeep less than 250 hours as a boat before being rebuilt had a bunch of rubber gloves in the boat oil pan causing accelerated valve train wear. Used all new parts used the old timing cover from his original low mileage engine. Original filled cyl 6 with water while sitting and froze cracking the sleeve.

 

This is possible. When a new or different oil-pump is installed and/or another distributor is installed the clearances may change. When the distributor is placed all the way down and locked in place, there should be about .010" vertical clearance in the distributor shaft. Grab the rotor and see if you can pull it up and down for play. If not you need to shim between the distributor housing and the timing cover.

 

As soon as I reassemble the distributor I will check that. The boy went to the zoo today so tomorrow he and I will put it back together.

 

Make sure you have the proper clearance between the top of the gear and the bottom of the dist housing.

 

Rubber gloves in the pan? What the heck? Those gloves certainly clogged the oil pickup and starved the engine for oil.
I still don't see a direct connection to the sheared roll pin on the distributor gear. If your distributor shank has a groove for an o-ring, thats the seal. My old Buick 215s (same timing cover as V6) use a flat gasket between the distributor and timing cover, and the V8 distributor doesn't have the o-ring groove.
-Donny

 

This is exactly what happens. It will continue to do this until it shears the roll pin and/or cuts a groove in the oil pump plate.

 

yeah we did the pertronix and had to set the clearance but i never thought to check after installing the distributor. thanks

 

Wow, gloves in the pan!?!?!?!?

 

yup the boat had less than 250 hrs at the time the engine puked. some one at the factory had to leave them there. the block and heads sat since 71 in the owners shop, pulled it apart and found the gloves,the pick up was just about plugged. the crank and pistons were fine the top end was not. we got all new rocker shafts and rockers with the engine the original owner had gathered all nos parts for the rebuild but never did it.

 

Thats crazy!

 

update...replaced pin,removed one shim from above the gear so i got 18 thou clearance . after installing the dist have 12 thou measured at rotor. an earlier thread on timing helped with getting that right. . seems like we may have been one tooth off before as it idles better and has much more throttle response now.

 

Glad to hear it.