360 no oil in timing cover

I realize that this answer is probably in the forum 239 times already, but I cant' find it.

1989 Grand Wagoneer, 50,000 miles, I recently bought it, it hadn't been driven in a couple of years.

I recently put an OMIX ADA cam and lifters, replaced the timing cover (Crown?), oil pump, and the timing chain and gears (OMIX). I used "Sta-Lube" on the parts when I assembled, and used a quart of break in oil and Rotella 10-30. I used a new cam gear, and put the old distributor in (with old gear), since I was only going to run it enough to break the cam in, then I was going to install a new HEI distributor. I packed the new oil pump with Vaseline, and turned the oil pump with a drill enough so that I saw oil coming up to the rocker arms. I did the recommended break-in... high-ish but fluctuating RPM's. It ran great.... sounded good, and about 10 minutes in, quit. I could turn the the rotor with my hand. I pulled the distributor, and the distributor gear was chewed. At first I thought it was because I mis-matched, but then I realized that there isn't really any oil inside of the timing cover?(just looking through the distributor hole) NO oil dripped off of the distributor when I pulled it out.

Your thoughts? Shouldn't it be very oily in the timing area? Why wouldn't it be?

Thanks!
Steven

There was about a 50% or more failure of the Crown covers. The distributor/oil pump hole is mis-aligned and the cam gear doesn't align right. MC here at Bulltear puts every cover on a jig and measures the alignment, he doesn't sell any that fail. You never know what you're getting with one purchased over the internet. There could also be a mis-alignment or blockage of the oil passage through the upper cam gear. There are 2 slots, one for the key, and one for oil. Oil travels from the front cam bearing, thru the slot to the dizzy gear. If that slot is mis-aligned or blocked by casting flash, oil won't make it to the dizzy gear, and it will fail in short order.

Omix parts are made in China and cheap, and always questionable quality. Remove the timing cover, check the oil passage in the upper timing gear, replace the gears with a matched set. Also check the pressure relief valve in the oil filter adapter. Make sure it's put in correctly, and moves freely. Too much oil pressure will really put a strain on the dizzy gears, since they drive the oil pump. You may also want to remove the oil pan to remove the metal shavings from the trashed gears. It will eventually ingest the metal (if it hasn't already) and trash the rod and main bearings.

Bob
tufcj

Omix Chinese cam
Omix Chinese timing set
HEI with new gear
Most likely an Omix Chinese timing cover

Ok so throw the word Chinese out the window we don't care about where it was made as long as its good. We have had ZERO luck with Omix timing covers (silver seal, proform or whomever else is selling that knock off). Because they don't give the gear much engagement. But that wasn't the end result, your problem was oil getting to your cam gear was obstructed by either the timing gear or the cam. One of the two are way off. I would restart with all new trusted and working parts. Too bad but you learned a $$$ lesson and it sucks because it will get many times more expensive the more you tear up your cam and distributor gear sets.

I didn't know that Omix-ADA had such a bad reputation. They're huge... I'm guessing that at least some of that bad reputation comes from an reasonable ratio of dissatisfied customers.

I was freaking out a little too much.... before I tore into it again, I hauled it to a professional. When it comes to things like perception, experience/a second (or fourth, since a few of the guys looked at it) opinion helps. They said it looked like I had enough oil in the timing cover. They said that using my old distributor gear was a bad idea, and when we started comparing how the teeth were cut, they weren't all the same/should have been in sets. Since I had not yet used my new distributor gear (the mate to the cam gear still in the Jeep), they put that on the HEI distributor, installed it, and it's good to go. It ran for an equivalent of 2 hours today, and all seems well.

Thanks!

Don't count on the cam gear lasting. The failing distributor gear very possibly damaged it. You still have mis-matched gears, one is used (even for just 10 minutes), one is new. They need to wear in as a matched set. Do very frequent oil changes if you don't pull the pan (like every 100 miles for the first 500). All the metal from those destroyed teeth are in the pan. Oil goes thru the oil pump BEFORE it's filtered, so you can easily score the pump housing (front cover) and gears. If anything gets past the filter bypass, it's in your rod and main bearings. I've had it happen. Cost me a crank and bearings on an engine with less than 1/2 hour run time.

Bob
tufcj