Another distributor gear damaged

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Another distributor gear damaged

August 15, 2010, 02:57:14 PM

87 TC distributor gear teeth thinned out. This happend once before. Distributor isn't binding, it gets oil, I don't notice any major shaft play. It seems that the mesh is getting too tight. I put almost 1k miles on it this summer.
I have another AUX shaft in good shape, should I install it with a new distributor. I hate to buy another dist. if I just need the gear.
Which gear should I get if I go that route?

Another distributor gear damaged

Reply #1 – August 15, 2010, 05:11:03 PM

change the Aux shaft. it is most likely the cause of your problem. also buy the lifetime warranty distributor from O'reillys and swap them out when there is an issue.

Another distributor gear damaged

Reply #2 – August 15, 2010, 07:50:46 PM

Not many people have had success mixing/matching distributor and aux. shaft gears. Your best bet is to replace them as a pair. If you pull them at a salvage yard, pull both the distributor and the aux shaft and swap them into your motor as a matched pair.

Another distributor gear damaged

Reply #3 – August 16, 2010, 04:05:13 PM

if you change the dist. gear, id go with the brass one. much stronger ive heard

Another distributor gear damaged

Reply #4 – August 18, 2010, 09:44:40 PM

I had this problem on my 87 turbocoupe. I replaced the dist and the aux shaft with brand new ford parts and i allway seem to wreak the gear on the distributer and chip the idler shaft gear. I sold the car because I never figured out the issue.

Another distributor gear damaged

Reply #5 – August 18, 2010, 09:54:35 PM

Quote from: 86caprirs;332536

I had this problem on my 87 turbocoupe. I replaced the dist and the aux shaft with brand new ford parts and i allway seem to wreak the gear on the distributer and chip the idler shaft gear. I sold the car because I never figured out the issue.

Think it could be a problem with the cam gear, possibly worn over?

Another distributor gear damaged

Reply #6 – August 19, 2010, 01:35:50 PM

what weight oil are you running? is it the stock oil pump?

remember that the aux shat drives the dizzy and oil pump, if you overload/stress the oil pump it stresses the gear mesh

cold thick oil, or high pressure/volume oil pumps case these to fail commonly.

rule of thumb, if the dizzy gear is bad, so is the aux shaft

Another distributor gear damaged

Reply #7 – August 19, 2010, 09:41:55 PM

I heard that high volume oil pumps caused this problem of killing the dizzy gears and idlers. I did not know what I had in my car since I bought it off a car lot.