The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk 207 distributor question

I broke the cam gear on my 35 big bolt. I have all of the parts and the repair manual. The one thing it is skimpy on is getting the distributor set back in toothed correctly. I haven’t torn it apart yet to see how coarse the gears are - will the rotor be noticeably off if I am off a tooth when I drop it back in? When my marks are lined up on the crank and cam gears how can I tell when I have the rotor in the right spot when putting in the distributor? I’m used to newer engines where you can just rotate the distributor body to make up for it being a tooth off, but I’m sure that won’t be the case with the octane adjustment on it.

It's roughly the same procedure. #1 most important thing before you do anything else is make sure you are at TDC on #1 compression stroke. Mark where your rotor is pointing if possible. Remove the old distributor and insert the new/rebuilt one easing it down and rotating to get the rotor pointing to the #1 cylinder spot you marked. As with any distributor it will probably take a little wiggling to get it to drop all the way down. Others may post a more detailed explanation or easier way to do it. Good luck.

Notjustair,

Is the "broken gear" the front fiber timing gear or the distributor gear...just want to make sure we are all on the same page.

Mike B

The Bakelite timing gear on the front of the cam.

Ok...

The reason the fiber timing gear failed is lack of lubrication. The oil nozzle that's just above the crank gear is clogged up and needs to be removed and cleaned. When re-installing make sure the oil outlet hole is pointing anywhere from straight down (6 o-clock) to an angle pointing right where the two gears meet (7:30).

Also, make sure the cam shaft end play clearance is checked when you press the new gear onto the cam...it needs to be anywhere between free spinning to a max of .003".

Don't forget to line the timing marks up when installing the cam shaft

As for the distributor timing that's done just like any other engine that's had the cam out...set #1 cylinder to TDC on the power stroke, drop the distributor back in and where ever the rotor is pointing is now the #1 plug post, then plug in the rest of the plug wires into the cap in the following order going clockwise around the cap 1 5 3 6 2 4.

Once you get the timing set with the engine running you set the octane selector at zero and tighten it's clamp around the distributor housing.

Hope this helps.

Mike B