My '91 E250 inline 6 has been diagnosed with stripped timing bearings. I've researched the forums on replacing them. I could not find a consensus on whether the front pulley bolt is left or right thread. I guess they changed from year to year. Does anyone know about 1991?
I admit I'm a little nervous about doing this job. Any tips on what to watch for, what order to do things and anything else to ensure this ordeal goes smoothly. I would appreciate any help I can get with this.
Thanks
Lloyd

 

As far as I know tgey are all right hand thread.

 

Also, Is this engine a zero interference engine, or is there a chance I bent some valves. There was no noise.

 

non interference engine

umm i dont know if its right or left now that i think of it...

 

Hi Lloyd, I can only assume and/or hope that you are saying that you have an engine that somehow wore the teeth off of the timing gears since the title of your thread is "changing timing gears". I am glad you did not let whoever "diagnosed" your problem do the work. I have never heard of timing bearings. Before you do anything I would describe to us exactly how all this began. You know what I mean. How was the truck running? How many miles? All the conditions leading to this "diagnosis".


Hopefully some of us will be able to determine if you are going in the right direction and guide you along through the necessary repairs.

As far as a 300 being an interference engine I would say no, but I am not positive. I think we started running into that problem when timing belts and closer tolerances came along. Luckily you have a real American, made in USA, older design as far as the basic engine. The design goes back to 1965. These engines are super durable so your problem could be a lot simpler than it seems. Even if you do need timing gears it wont be the end of the world.

 

Yes, it is timing GEARS. Temporary insanity. I just went over 200,000 miles. I was going up the highway, about 70mph. The engine just died. No noise, just died. I got towed to a garage. The mechanic could find no spark. He had a used module and installed it on the dist. Still no spark. He had a new one delivered. No spark. He pulled the cap off, cranked the engine and the rotor didn't turn. He tuged on the rotor and it did not turn on its own, ruling out Dist. gear or roll pin. He explained about the fibre gears. How they hardly ever strip, but, couldn't explain it any other way.
Lloyd

 

mybe the cam broke. it is a posibility(worse case senario) . time for a bigger cam

 

If the timing gears are broken, you should pull your oil pan out and clean any fragments out and find out what else is broken and in the oil pan. If you leave the broken bits in the oil pan, they will probably start clogging your oil pump. You need to make sure your engine is fixed up and cleaned up.

 

Clearly you're talking about the timing gears of which one is "plastic" (nylon?)

Is this composite gear turning out to be a problem and is there an alternative (I.E.metal gears)? (After all it did go 200,000 miles with nylon!!)

A lot of engines use nylon in the timing set. Is there a disadvantage in using metal gears (other than noise)?


I want to put a 300 in my 1955 F-600. Does anyone have a preference in transmissions? I have had many suggest the C-6, an excellent trans. I really need an OD type trans( 6.80 rear end/40" dia tires) that's made for big trucks. (big meaning 1ton or larger) The E40D was OEM in the "Super Duties" I believe.

Finally, should I rebuild a 300 stock or should I do things like an RV cam, 2/4 bbl carb(or EFI?) *remember* it's an F-600....not a funny car!! :-) I just want some good pulling power and "decent" empty driving, top gear highway mpg!



Thanks,


Rick

 

I'm at the point that I'm looking at the timing gears. The diagnose was correct. Half the cam gear is gone. There doesn't seem to be any way to hook up a puller to it. Other than smashing the fibre part and going to town on the metal hub, how do I get this gear off?
Lloyd

 

I know on the metal gears, the best route is to drill and tap a few holes in the gear itself and use a T-bar style puller to get it off. Given it's proabably still in the motor, that may be a problem if you haven't already removed the radiator. I think you're going to have to get creative in getting it off. You may need to remove the cam itself from the block and then fool with it.

 

I went thru former posts searching for anything I could find about changing these gears. One suggestion was to break the nylon portion off of the hub and weaken the metal hub with a hack saw. I think I will try this before removing the cam. I'm going to start by drilling and tapping some holes near the hub and using a puller. I don't have much hope that this will work, but, figure it is worth a try.

 

Hi, relax you aren't in as deep as you think, but ( it is a big but )
you will probably end up removing the cam. I just went through the same thing as you are now. The cam gear on mine ( 1990 ) is fiber and you couldn't get a puller to move the gear for love or money.
You will have to do the following.

1. Remove the valve cover
2. loosen the rocker arms and remove the pushrods and number them.
3. remove the distributor--- line up the dist to number 0ne first and note where the timing mark is ( should be between 0 and 10 degrees on the timing plate ) try not to turn over the engine from now on.
4. remove the valve lifter cover behind the dist, the long and wide tin thing on the drivers side of the engine.
5. remove the lifters and mark them as to where they were, an egg carton makes a good container.
6. the cam is held in with two bolts behind the gear , they are assessed through holes in the cam. If you have to turn the engine to get the cam to move return it to where it set in step 3.
7. You should be able to remove the cam, be VERY CAREFUL not to tear up the cam bearings when you pull the cam. Pull it out slowly and lift it at the same time and you will be able to feel the cam bearings as the journals slide in and out of the bearings, there 6 or so cam bearings you have to clear.
On my truck I had to remove the radiator, ac condenser, and grill and drop the bumper to clear the way for the LONG cam You might be better off as yours is earlier.At this point you can devise some way of removing the gear. As mine was fiber , I sawed off most of the gear and took a hack saw and carefully split the steel hub of the fiber gear. Even with all this I had to use the largest gear puller I had and it didn't give up easily.
A word of caution, when you unbolt the cam from the engine you will be unbolting the cam thrust plate, This is a cast iron oval plate just under 1/4 inch thick and it is ground on both sides. DO NOT TRY TO PUT A PULLER ON THIS PLATE to pull the gear you will end up with a two part plate. In fact you may have to break this plate to get the jaws of a puller behind the gear and if you are careful in splitting the gear hub you might save the plate Don't loose the cam gear key you can't get them. While this is all in parts on the ground look at the cam and lifters.Now is a good time to replace the cam, lifters ,thrust plate and pushrods. Check the web for a Melling cam kit and timing gears( yes it is the same Melling that used to sponsor Bill Elliot in Nascar). It's stock and the cam kit will go for around $80. with cam and new lifters in the kit. The gear set is about $35 and the thrust plate is $20 or so. Pushrods are $1.50
each. Gasket kit for the side cover and the front cover( get the one that comes with the front seal ).
Before you run out and do all this get a good manual for Fords and read up on this. I have described what you would do for a 1990. Yours might be slightly different. Its not as hard as it sounds , it just pisses you off when you find the cam won't clear the front bumper as it is too long
As far as timing the cam , replace both gears . A good puller will remove the crank gear easily, I think Auto Zone has a loner gear puller for the crank gear.If you replace the crank gear and you should, make sure the DOT IS FACING OUT!!! It is also cheap enough for you to buy a puller, about $15. 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.


Bob/stractor

 

Thanks Bob and the rest of you. The gears are in! I can't believe they couldn't install some steel threaded inserts in the fibre gear, to pull it. I destroyed the fibre part and hack sawed the metal hub until it gave up the fight. I'm a little upset that the new crank gear did not come with threaded holes. Had I been near my shop I would have drilled and tapped a couple, but, I'm not planning on repeating this repair.
The gears are in with the dots in allignment. Timing gear cover on and crank pulley. As the dist had been out, I moved the crank pulley so one of the 3 marks lined up with the 12 degree mark on the cover and dropped the distributor in so the rotor was pointing near the #1 lug on the cap, installed the cap, plugged the connector into the dist. Turned the key and it didn't fire. Ther was a timing light hooked up, and, we could not see any spark, althiugh the light is old and has one of those spring things that hook up to #!.
Withe the ignition on, I have juice on bothe wires that go into the coil, and, I detected juice in one of the wires in the connector that goes into the dist.
Can anyone help me with this? Thanks
Lloyd

 

You may have two seperate problems. First the method of installing that distributor that you use could easily land you in having the rotor 180 degrees off. Even if it were off that far you would see a spark. It would just be at the wrong time and the engine would not run. If you have NO spark then that is the first problem that has to be eliminated. I was thinking that being a 91 model there should be a Crankshaft Position Sensor involved with the computerized system. I'm not sure where Ford put them on that particular engine but I do know that some manufacturers put it to work on the front pulley. Others use the flywheel end. A disconected or bad CPS will cause a no fire situation.