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#63 ·
Steven van 't Ende said:
If you could elaborate on why I should, then I might consider that.
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Ah. Sorry, I've been away. First, of course, your distributor gear was incompatible with your camshaft, so will need repair or replacement.

The shop I work with has had uncounted cars in their shop, and when the MSD has not been dead, it has often operated poorly. Great in theory, but in practice a well-adjusted stock distributor gives equal performance to MSD. We once had a guy on the way to our summer picnic show, MSD failed enroute. He called home for a spare MSD box, swapped that in, in a few miles it failed, too. After flatbedding the car to the shop, a stock distributor was fitted. Car ran like a champ.

This is Dan Gurney's 427 Ford. Clocked at 200+ miles per hour. Note the stock dual point and stock coil. So, just how fast do you drive to Dairy Queen?

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#64 ·
Steven van 't Ende said:
We bought it like that and since it ran just fine we never bothered to change it. I was aware it is too big, but what are the actual cons? I haven't noticed any so far.
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A carb that large will have reduced throttle response, and likely much poorer fuel consumption than a properly sized carb.
 
Discussion starter · #67 ·
Hey guys, I'm back with a status update.

So we have drained the oil, removed the pan (which was quite a bit of work) and cleaned it. We did find a few shards that looks like as if they came from the broken gear.

A few days later I removed the oil pump and checked it, it was working perfectly fine which surprises me since I was hoping that it locked up so that would clarify why the gear was all shredded. Now I still do not know why the gear got damaged this bad.

One other thing I noticed while I was laying down there was that I had vision on the camshaft itself and it appears that we have a flat tappet camshaft and not a roller. One thing that worries me is that some parts on the camshaft appear to be damaged, see the pics:
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Should I be worried about this or leave it as is since in it's current state it doesn't affect that much I think? I am not sure what the conditions were when we bought this car so I cant tell if it got worse.

Today I mounted back the oil pump and replaced the gear on the distributor with the SAME type of gear (cast iron) because of all the uncertainties we did not want to mess around with it too much. If it breaks again this quick we will get a different type of gear.

My current priorities lie with getting proper readings for the engine temp and oil pressure so that I can know for sure that it's not causing the issue.
 
#69 ·
Should be smooth and shiny that looks broken and burnt up. I would replace it with new lifters.
 
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#70 ·
I think those dark stripes and dark spots are oil that ran down from above. If that is what it is it is terribly dark and looks shimmery like it has metal shavings in it. Cam is damaged and therefore toast. The lifters on the damaged lobes are likely toast as well. I wouldn't put it back together at this point. If you do you are asking for a bare minimum of flattened cam lobe(s) and cupped lifter(s) with potential accelerated wear due to metal in the oiling system....Worst case could be catastrophic failure. It's time to disassemble and evaluate what sort of damage you have and the course of action to make it right.

Your distributor gear issues are over at least. When you replace that cam, at least you will know what sort of gear you need.
 
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#73 ·
Steven van 't Ende said:
Ah crap, just what I was afraid of.. How do I determine what kind of camshaft I need (in terms of lift size etc.)?
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A camshaft determines the personality of your engine so you need to decide that and then cam selection can be made.

Do you have emissions requirements?
Auto or Manual Transmission?
What gear ratio?
What kind of cam do you want flat tappet or roller (go roller)
Are you going to change valve springs or work with what you have (i'd change since whats on the engine is unknown)
Do you want EFI in the future?
Are you one of those silly guys that want the car to lope? even though that makes driveability suffer
Do you want torque? Max hp?

Tons of questions when it comes to cam selection that must be answered.
 
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Discussion starter · #74 ·
cj428mach said:
A camshaft determines the personality of your engine so you need to decide that and then cam selection can be made.

Do you have emissions requirements?
Auto or Manual Transmission?
What gear ratio?
What kind of cam do you want flat tappet or roller (go roller)
Are you going to change valve springs or work with what you have (i'd change since whats on the engine is unknown)
Do you want EFI in the future?
Are you one of those silly guys that want the car to lope? even though that makes driveability suffer
Do you want torque? Max hp?

Tons of questions when it comes to cam selection that must be answered.
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Thanks for the reply. We will discuss this and I will come back with the answers very shortly :)
 
#75 ·
This thread makes for a long read and a cautionary tale.

Steven...based on the whole post to this point and everything you have discovered about your engine. I would say that if I was in your shoes I would probably pull the engine and tear it down.

You mentioned fluctuating oil pressure, which while I can't explain may be an indication that the cam damage you see came from poor oiling. If so, there's no reason to assume damage was limited to the cam. The main bearings (crankshaft) may also be damaged.

Someone that knows engines needs to have yours on a stand, tear it down, find all the problems, and then you can made a decision on how to proceed. This "one step at a time" approach you've done to this point has been good...but as everything you look at seems to be FUBAR....time to jerk the engine and take it apart in my opinion.

Sorry!

Phil
 
Discussion starter · #76 ·
HoosierBuddy said:
This thread makes for a long read and a cautionary tale.

Steven...based on the whole post to this point and everything you have discovered about your engine. I would say that if I was in your shoes I would probably pull the engine and tear it down.

You mentioned fluctuating oil pressure, which while I can't explain may be an indication that the cam damage you see came from poor oiling. If so, there's no reason to assume damage was limited to the cam. The main bearings (crankshaft) may also be damaged.

Someone that knows engines needs to have yours on a stand, tear it down, find all the problems, and then you can made a decision on how to proceed. This "one step at a time" approach you've done to this point has been good...but as everything you look at seems to be FUBAR....time to jerk the engine and take it apart in my opinion.

Sorry!

Phil
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Phil, no worries there. We gotta do what we gotta do.
 
Discussion starter · #77 · (Edited)
Guys, I have another question for you.

What are your opinions on using the current camshaft and lifters to get through the inspection and obtain the title and then after that taking out the engine to rebuild it?
We are currently driving a C4 automatic but we have the desire to swap it out for a 5-speed manual later on, meaning this gives us the opportunity to combine these two tasks together.

One other issue we're having is that we need to go for re-evaluation within the next 7 weeks, so we have a limited timeslot here. Would it be dumb of us to make the can run for now and fix the problems later? Obviously we won't be driving it and hitting it hard so the wear should be minimal.
 
#78 ·
I'm sure it can be made to run long enough for your examination, the worst that could happen is a lifter go flat or something and poor performance cause an emissions problem (I just assume most countries have emissions standards)

The other issue is rework, the pan is off now and distributor, so you still have to pull the intake, valve covers and front cover to install the cam. Would you rather do that now or reassemble and do it all again. At this point I'd just cam swap it and see what happens, if you were just going to try for your inspection I would have done the melonized gear, changed oil and done the inspection. Since you've started into it I'd keep going. I absolutely despise rework.
 
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#79 ·
I've never seen a cam with chunks missing before. If you do run it, your putting the rest of your engine at risk. It's always cheaper to fix a problem as early as possible.
 
#80 ·
I am by no means a professional mechanic but I agree you are putting the rest of the engine at risk. Sending metal shards through the engine is a recipe for destroying your bottom end.

These engines can take a surprising amount of abuse however, I just stripped down a 302 that had all broken piston rings, only 1 main cap bolt holding in one of the center mains, and the #7 and #4 rods both had a broken bolt. Surprisingly, it ran well with only a minor knock though it had an unbelievable amount of blow by. Probably had 15k miles out on it like that.
 
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Steven van 't Ende
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