Timing Chain Replacement

[BSM78]

What does the dowel pin on the cam gear fit into on the engine side? There is some sort of C-shaped spacer that spins freely, but there appears to be only one alignment hole on the cam. Do I remove that C shaped spacer when installing a new gear/chain set?

Thanks-

[knightfire83]

What engine do you have?

[fordman]

c shaped spacer? on which side of the cam gear is this spacer? could it be a broken fuel pump eccentric? located on the front of the cam gear. there should only be one hole for the line up pin on a stock cam. once the old cam timing gear is removed you should only see the cam with two holes in it. one for the bolt in the center and the other for the line up pin.

[benm78]

Its a 360 FE. Spacer is between the gear and the engine, fits inside the thrust plate ID.

It is called out as the "c-shaped spacer" in the repair manual. So I now see after looking at the diagram in the repair manual that there is only one dowel pin hole in the cam, which is good. So all I need to do is line up the dots on the cam and crank gears so that they are vertical inline and the cam/crank will be in time with each other......?

The new timing set says that the cam gear (Federal Mogul, "sealed power") has the spacer cast into it, so I should remove the current spacer....this is also indicated in the fact that when reinstalled including the factory spacer, the dowel pin had to be coerced to stand proud of the face of the cam gear to engage in the fuel pump eccentric. When i first installed it, the dowel pin sunk too deep and wasn't engaging the fuel pump eccentric at all. I assume that when the spacer is removed that the dowel pin will bottom out in the cam and be forced to stand proud of the cam gear to engage the fuel pump eccentric....??

Does this all sound correct?

Before removing the distributor I rotated the crank until the rotor pointed dead straight at the firewall (with timing chain/gears installed). Seems as though even before I rotate the crank to make sure the three dots line up that I should get the distributor back into the engine to avoid taking additional steps in setting the timing......

Make sense?

THANKS!

[fordman]

i have heard of the double roller gears needing a longer pin fo rthe fuel pump eccentric to engage properly. if the orignal pin is too short it coudl work its way back into the cam and not let the eccentric engage so the fuel pump will either not work or pump at the wrong time. but i dont know if that would make a difference on fuel pump timing. i now see the spacer in my book part 6265. i dont think i have ever remember seeing one of those before. i guess if the timing gear has it made on to it then it would be ok to elminate the stock spacer.

[benm78]

Just compared the two cam gears and the new does indeed have the spacer cast and machined into it......with the stock c-shaped spacer removed, the dowel pin is just barely long enough to engage the fuel pump eccentric......problem solved.