cam gear is flopping in the breeze, and hits the cover and block thus causing the popping sound we heard. no damage to any parts, although while reading the timing gear post from other member i noticed the recommendation to use a 7/16" bolt to install cam gear. Is that bolt suppose to be there it does not look like there is enough clearance to the inside of the cover if a bolt were on the cam gear. but the cam gear can move in and out freely by hand as it is now without a bolt. any ideas guys.
thanks.

 

I've only had two 300's apart so far, both of them had a bolt in them already. After removing the bolt the cam gear was still a press fit and I couldn't get it off without a puller. If I remember correctly, most Ford cam bolts have a reduced height head for cover clearance. You could accomplish the same thing by grinding some material off the top of the head.

Since the gears have to mesh together it might not be a bad idea to replace them if the cam gear is flopping around. It's gotta be rough on the gears when one of them isn't securely mounted. A new cam gear might fit tighter on the cam and not flop around.

 

thank you silver streak,
the key and key way on the cam are wore out so we're replacing the set. it appears to me that the bolt would have to have a washer large enough to retain the gear and the head will have to be pretty shallow or a bolt with washer attached. i am going to check with ford tommorow, thanks again for your help, any further comments are most welcome.

 

Hi, The cam gear in the I6 is not held on the cam shaft with a bolt. The threads in the cam nose are to remove and reinstall the gear. The cam is a press fit on the shaft. If your cam/cam gear moves there are several reasons. There is a cast iron thrust plate directly behind the gear, it has the bolt holes that hold the cam to the block,That may be badly worn or broken. Replace it, they are cheap $8. If the gear actually moves on the cam nose then you will need a new cam as the gear is a press fit. Replace the cam gears as a set, don't cheap out and do half the job. You can get a Melling cam, and lifters for $81 by searching the net auto parts stores , I think it was auto parts giant . com . Melling also makes a set of gears for about $35. You will need a puller for the crank damper and the gear, about $15 from autozone.

stractor

 

PS. you will NOT be able to get a cam gear KEY from FORD, it's no longer listed. You can get the thrust plate from ford.

stractor

 

thanks stractor,
the cam thrust plate appears intact, we will be removing it for further inspection, the key is toast, the keyway on the gear is toast, the keyway on the cam is marginal, this is my 15 year old sons project so we will be replacing the cam, lifters, and gears all together. local carquest wants $91.00 + just for the gears, thanks for the advice for parts we'll check that out.

good time to learn to do it right the first time.

if ya ain't got time to do it right the first time how ya gonna have time to do it again

 

Shop around for the cam gear. I just bought the cam & crank gear matched set from the local NAPA dealer for $45. Good luck!

 

Here is somthing I wrote for someone else, it may be of use to you.

I just went through the same thing on my 1990. Getting the gear on is the easy part as long as you remember to put the spacer and thrust plate back on first. I am asuming your cam has the spacer and thrust plate behind the gear. To replace the gear you get a grade 8 bolt from home depot to match the threads inside the cam nose, mine was 7/16 x 14 tpi. Yours may be diffrent but the grade 8 bolt is for safety so you don't break it off in the cam while you are using it to pull the gear on. Any way you put the spacer on first with the bevel towards the cam and then the thrust plate , if it is worn get a new one from ford for $8, then the key goes back in the cam, save the original key as they are no longer available from ford and they seem to be a hardened key. Start the gear on the cam and make sure it is going on straight , I made an aligner out of some scrap brass turned on a lathe so it fit inside the gear and had a hole through it of 7/16 to match the bolt. Start the gear by hand , it won't go far, find a heavy washer with the inside hole the size of your bolt and the outside larger than the hole in the gear.Thread the bolt in the cam nose and thighten away, a little oil is helpful, and you will pull the gear on the cam. Be careful of the following----- on my cam the nose of the cam stuck out of the gear about 1/32 of an inch when seated all the way, and there was very little clearence between the thrust plate and the cam gear. It should be .005 or something like that. Using the above method the cam will stop moving when the nose hits the washer. I noticed at this point that the trust plate
had a lot of clearence and I realised that the gear had to keep moving. I made a spacer about 1/4 inch thick to put between the
washer and the gear so the nose would pull through more, the inside diameter of the spacer was larger than the cam nose.
Removing the gear was no picnic. The 90 gear is not metal and there was no place the gear puller could grab as it kept slipping off the phenolic gear, the book says simply pull it off. Yea right try it with one that has been in place for 10 years. I ended up removing the cam and bandsawing the gear off so I could get a puller on the steel hub in the gear and it took one hell of a puller to move the hub as soon as it went BANG and broke loose it came off easily. Hope this helps.





stractor