Timing Gear recomendations

[dibarlaw]

2 weeks ago Sunday my Standard with the expensive engine rebuild went BANG at between 35 and 40 mph and started to run crappy. I thought maybe a roller lifter spring broke. Rollback ride home. I was looking for the easy stuff first. The sound seemed to come from the S/G. When I isolated it stopped. Pulled apart the S/G Replaced the generator clutch and went through the unit. I reinstalled, retimed and the noise was still there. The car starts right up! I pulled off all the roller lifter cages to check springs. All good. When restarted the water pump housing seemed to be pulsating. Still with the noise. A more metallic scraping rather than the muffled thump I remember when the timing gear went out on the Master. I drained out the system, loosened the packing nuts and split the pump apart to check the impellor. All looks good there. My fear is that it is indeed the timing gear. Wanting to have it be something easy since I had just done the timing gear on my Master over the winter. Checking the water pump that I have had apart twice already to open up the bushings since it had been running hot with the recommended expensive lip seals. The input side had the bushing seized on the new stainless steel shaft and spinning in the housing.

So I believe I had found the cause of the BANG! The Standards have a cover on the top of the crankcase at the front and it is verified that about 6 teeth are chewed up.

Hence the effect down stream from the cause. My Buick buddies and I have been discussing the possibility of the fiber gear acting as a failsafe to forestall any further damage to the engine in the case of a catastrophic failure.

 I had purchased a very nice full toothed, spare original gear from ebay a while ago. Upon close inspection I have one tooth on it that looks to have a slight fracture and now I am leery about using it. But as some have indicated they would not trust the 95 year old originals anyway.  "Bob's" has only an all-fiber reproduction available for $315. It is noted that they do not have a metal hub. Has any one installed one of these gears from Bob's? I have not heard anything about their longevity.  I do have the spare original. Just don't believe it to be worth-while installing it if these old fiber ones are going to crap out.

 No rest for the wicked... 

Edited May 4, 2020 by dibarlaw
Added content (see edit history)

[jscheib]

Yes Larry, isn't this fun.  But, "timing" (no pun intended) during this "physical distancing" could not be better.

 

John