TOPTRUCKBOB Greetings fellow gearheads. I have been involved in offroading and vehicles in general all my life, However I have NEVER been so stumped with an engine problem such as this. I have read all the posts here on this subject but am still in question as to how to fix the problem once and for all! Basically I overpaid for a crappy rebuild on a jeep 360 for my wifes built offroad jeep. It ate it's first dist gear and cam gear at 500 miles,jumped time in my garage. both gears were trashed. Afterward, during dissasembly ,I found some trash in the oil hole in the front cam bearing. cleaning everything and installed a new cam,lifters etc.Also a new cam gear and dist gear FROM THE LOCAL JEEP DEALER. This time I was able to break in ther new cam and drove it about 10 miles, stalled out and rolled to the side of the road.The cam gear was completly trashed..AGAIN. there was plenty of oil on both gears but it was strange the dist gear dosen't seem to be worn at all. I am running a DUI dist and heven't checked the end play yet but I am planning to. The only thing I have found is it seems that the oil pump is a little chunky when you install the dist into the timing cover and turn it by hand. I am compareing it to another jeeep 304 timing cover I have in the shop for a friend's engine (it has a melling oil pump kit i installed in it and seems very smooth when turned by hand) I think this has played a part in the gear failure. Also I was running 2050 oil, Is this too thick for a AMC v8? I am interested in a mached set of dist and cam gears and an oil pump kit. are they sold here? Also why can't I use the old timing cover??(assumeing everything is ok) HELP!! Surely someone here can tell me what are the likley problems and how to fix them. Any help?? Thanks, Bob :!:
jeepsr4ever Dang Bob Welcome aboard and thats a bummer :oops: Lets examine some of the probable causes if your cam is right. 1. The weight of your oil can cause this if you are in either a very cold climate or have the oil filter bypass cast in or have it plugged. 2. Oil pump binding will cause this. 3. A distributor which sets the gear off the center of the pattern by more than .040" will eat gears 4. Some oil pump sets have a large error margin from the factory and some of the shafts that drive the pump have been known to be pressed in just shy of tolerance allowing the distributor to force the gear into the oil filter adaptor.....you would know this from installation of your dizzy 5. The orientation pins on the block and holes in the cover must be in very good condition. (AL knows this first hand) a few other factors but the most common are laid out for you. I would look o the distributor for the cause. If need be I will check it out for you if you dont mind sending it this way
jeepmonster TOPTRUCKBOB wrote ,I found some trash in the oil hole in the front cam bearing. Any help?? Thanks, Bob :!: If the hole was plugged this blocked oil flow to the gears and they would be running DRY!
