If you were able to move that gear without the use of a hydraulic press, the distributor is junk and needs to be put on the shelf with a sign that says, NEVER buy a chinese distributor.
Those gears are pressed on to the correct dimension then drilled for the pin. The pin that sheared was no doubt a spring pin and not a true roll pin there is a difference.
I have used Davis Unified distributors in the past but that was a long time ago before they were bought out by Comp cams. You need to call them and see if they talk the talk ie. ask you what cam, what compression, what rpm, etc. If they don't your probably just going to get another one size fits all Chinese dist.
I have done business with this fellow he is straight up and will build you a dist. for your engine combination. FBO Performance Ignition for all Makes, Muscle Cars, Street Rods, Race Engines. Specializing in Mopar Ignition Products, Distributors to Computer control ECU's. Home of the HRR688 (4secondsflat.com)
I use his modules now with Duraspark distributors because they are made in the USA and have built in rev limiters.

 

Thanks CropDuster. The gear was definitely not a press fit - was easy to slide off once pin fragments were removed. I’ll take your advice and shelf that CRT “Performance” unit. I called Davis Unified and they asked a lot of questions - cam specs, intake, compression ratio, heads/valve size, transmission type and gearing, rear end ratio, manifold vacuum at idle, etc. He said they use all that to customize the advance curve. Will be the same price as the DUI unit listed on Summit - $395.00 - the ones on Summit use a generic curve they developed most widely applicable to a stock, non-performance FE engine. He said it should have no problem working well with the HV/standard psi Melling oil pump. Now to dig out receipts and notes to get all the info asked for. Thanks for all the replies.

 

It will run even better with that custom curve! Excellent results from good advice. The group on FTE is knowledgeable, helpful, and smart. Nice work!

 

Good deal. I'm happy to hear Davis Unified is still doing custom curves. Let us know if you see a difference in performance.

 

Well I ordered the HEI style distributor from Davis Unified in July. Received it Friday. Pulled out of the box to install this weekend and noticed a quality control issue……


They apologized and said send it back to make it right. Hopefully it will not require another 3 months to get it back. It would be nice to have the beast back on the road; way easier to haul stuff in that long bed compared to the Tacoma bed.

 

Wow. That's all I can say about that.

 

After reading this yesterday, I brought out the Dragon Fire HEI distributor I bought a while back. I was about ready to install it in my freshly rebuilt engine anyway. Bit I inspected the drive gear fit and saw that it had a fairly stout roll pin. No looseness of the drive gear whatsoever. Hopefully, there will be no troubles down the road.

But, very timely post, and it caused me to look a bit closer than I otherwise might have. Sorry about your troubles, but thanks for posting about it!

 

Well, after three weeks finally received the distributor back drilled and with a nice beefy roll pin installed. Had to pressure via e-mail and phone to get them to get the thing back to me. Not happy about that. I’ll put it in this weekend and it better run good after this s#1t. After receiving rather tepid and unconcerned responses I sent them this…….

”I do understand that mistakes are inevitable, however, if a company is dedicated to quality and customer service, resolving a mistake should be expedited with urgency. I didn’t see that happen - I had to result to being a squeaky wheel to speed up the resolution. Furthermore, I had to pay shipping a second time. There was no effort to make that right. Not a good way to build customer loyalty. I belong to several vintage vehicle forums and I document to others my experiences with vendors.
I received the distributor today and will install this weekend. Hopefully, a finished product will perform well and the engine will run like a scalded hound from hell. Just imagine if I had not noticed the mistake, installed the distributor, it failed, and my newly rebuilt engine suffered expensive damage. Based on your companies lackadaisical response to the assembly mistake; I have little faith there would have been any compensation nor concern for my monetary loss.”

Even if it screams like a maniacal banshee with the distributor; I don’t think I would recommend it to anyone. If you mess up, you gotta fess up and make a reasonable effort to resolve your mistake.

 

A scalded hound from hell? . . . A maniacal banshee? These things are unknown to me, I just need to motor contentedly down the road. And I do.

 

wise a$$ levity is always welcome. To run like a scalded hound is a common saying in the Appalachian region for a good, strong running engine.

 

In my region - and more specifically, in my own house - a wise **** and a dumb **** are the same. And I’m not referring to my wife.

 

Maybe it's from Minnesota, where my Grandfather was from, I always heard, and use, "She runs like a striped A$$ Ape" Perhaps you have never seen a Striped a$$ ape, that's cause they run so fast.