SYRacing
10-21-2008, 06:10 AM
I picked up a 79' J20 awhile ago so I don't know much history on the vehicle. It has a 360 and the PO has had the timing cover off 2 different times and replaced the distributor and cam gear with Bulltear matched gears. Problem is that it keeps eating the cam gear.
Now that I've acquired the rig I would like to know if it would be silly of me to ditch the Bulltear HEI and reinstall the duraspark distributor. I'm unsure who makes the particular HEI conversion distributor I have because I don't know any history on the vehicle. I'm only assuming its Bulltear since it has the alternator relocation bracket and he used bulltear's matched gears etc.
The timing gear set is new and the cam has energizer scribed on the front with some numbers on it. I can't find a reference to crane ever making an "energizer" cam for the AMC 360. I tried googling the numbers stamped on the front and didn't find anything. Is it possible that someone used a Chrysler 360 cam? The gear showed signs of some serious alignment issues, like the distributor was engaging too far away on the cam gear. The distributor gear looks fine. Anybody else encounter these issues? PO said that the truck ran for 2hrs one time and the last 2 times the gear sheared it only lasted a couple minutes. Oil pump shaft moves freely, no binding going on there. I was going to drill and tap the cover for 1/8 NPT and T into the sending unit line to ensure things are getting oiled up in there as well. Also installing a known working front timing cover from a core 360. I was also going to measure the distance from the end of the cam to the first lobe (right by the entrance into the engine block)
The cam isn't hitting that rear freeze plug, the first lobe actually goes into the engine block, looks identical to the core 360 I got another timing cover off of...
I don't want to put it back together and have another gear go bald on me, what kind of tips & tricks would you guys suggest? I already know about coating the gears in assembly lube and all of the other stuff, what about running the gasket under the distributor? This would space it away from the gear a little more. PO also used felpro gasket between timing cover / engine block.
Thanks in advance, I don't want to go through the same woes as the PO. I'm willing to buy any parts that will fix this!!
Now that I've acquired the rig I would like to know if it would be silly of me to ditch the Bulltear HEI and reinstall the duraspark distributor. I'm unsure who makes the particular HEI conversion distributor I have because I don't know any history on the vehicle. I'm only assuming its Bulltear since it has the alternator relocation bracket and he used bulltear's matched gears etc.
The timing gear set is new and the cam has energizer scribed on the front with some numbers on it. I can't find a reference to crane ever making an "energizer" cam for the AMC 360. I tried googling the numbers stamped on the front and didn't find anything. Is it possible that someone used a Chrysler 360 cam? The gear showed signs of some serious alignment issues, like the distributor was engaging too far away on the cam gear. The distributor gear looks fine. Anybody else encounter these issues? PO said that the truck ran for 2hrs one time and the last 2 times the gear sheared it only lasted a couple minutes. Oil pump shaft moves freely, no binding going on there. I was going to drill and tap the cover for 1/8 NPT and T into the sending unit line to ensure things are getting oiled up in there as well. Also installing a known working front timing cover from a core 360. I was also going to measure the distance from the end of the cam to the first lobe (right by the entrance into the engine block)
The cam isn't hitting that rear freeze plug, the first lobe actually goes into the engine block, looks identical to the core 360 I got another timing cover off of...
I don't want to put it back together and have another gear go bald on me, what kind of tips & tricks would you guys suggest? I already know about coating the gears in assembly lube and all of the other stuff, what about running the gasket under the distributor? This would space it away from the gear a little more. PO also used felpro gasket between timing cover / engine block.
Thanks in advance, I don't want to go through the same woes as the PO. I'm willing to buy any parts that will fix this!!
