I'm getting ready to do a major remake of the engine, head work, header to EFI with duals, cam swap for lope at idle, and was wondering if it is difficult to R&R the lower timing gear.

Thanks.

Love my Holley 1848.

 

The lower one was quite a bit easier than the cam one, if you have the right tools.
The biggest issue with it is that there's just about enough room behind it for a sheet of paper, so it's pretty difficult to get to. Neither my original, or the Comp replacement I put on there, had any sort of connection for a puller.

The way I removed mine was to get a series of wedge ranging in size. Tap the smallest one underneath the gear, working around it. Then the next, and the next, next, etc. until it pops off. The kit had about 10 wedges in it shaping from about 1/16" to 1" in thickness, or so.



To put it back on, I heated it in the oven until it was around 300°. Put some grease on the end of the crank, and shoved it in as far as it would go (don't forget the hot pads). Then, I got a piece of pipe larger diameter than the crank and just tapped it on the rest of the way with a hammer.




All in all, it wasn't a big deal, but I'm not sure what else I would have used to remove it.

 

Thanks, AB.

I've needed to change them for a few years. When I rebuilt the engine I used my friend's machine shop. They installed a reground cam and the base circles were smaller than oem. That translated to free play in the rockers! Not only that, but the timing gears they supplied growled badly. I swapped in my Isky cam with T.gear attached, leaving the crank gear. That solved the growl for a few years. Now it is back so I have to change both gears, as should have been done.

 

If I remember right, timing gears are a matched set after they wear to each other, so I imagine the old crank gear slowly wore out the cam gear. Dunno for certain.

Sounds like you have a couple R&R projects coming up. Should be fun.