Distributor Play
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Distributor gear is shot.
It appears to be a cast iron gear. The distributor had been replaced at some point in time since it is stamped "reman". It is a Motorcraft Distributor, not that that means anything. The issue now is do we replace the gear with a cast iron or steel one. I'm leaning toward steel.
The symptoms.
We've had the truck for six months. Odometer reads 57k and based on general overall appearance of the truck-engine-etc. is probably correct. Increasingly it seemed to be losing power, not that it had a whole lot when we first got it. Got so bad that it would not pull up our relatively flat driveway. Was making a clacking noise from the drivers side rear of the engine, so I thought the coil was bad since my 2003 F-150 V6 had a coil pack go bad that sounded & acted the same. New coil, wires, and plugs seemed to help a lot however my son came home a few days later and noticed a lot of steam coming out from under the hood (roads were wet from rain). He opened the hood and saw the manifolds a "nice" bright orange. Did some reading here and figured the timing was retarded. The timing was way off. Cleaned up the scale on the balancer, put some white paint on 10 degrees BTDC and straightened out the timing. Ran like a champ. Lots of power. Several days and miles later, my son is coming up the road last night doing about 45mph and "Bang", no engine exhaust noise from my vantage. He later said that there was a quick screech/bang, engine quit and he coasted onto our street. Pulled him up the driveway and parked it till this morning. All the plug boots were "goo", no doubt from being cooked with the retarded timing. Did some more reading, pulled the distributor and found a gear stripped of teeth on half the gear and not much left on the other half. The gear on the camshaft appears OK. The engine turns, all the pulleys turn. So the other big question is whether or not we are just dealing with the wrong gear, i.e. cast iron vs. steel, or is there another problem inside the engine.
Any further input would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Peter
It appears to be a cast iron gear. The distributor had been replaced at some point in time since it is stamped "reman". It is a Motorcraft Distributor, not that that means anything. The issue now is do we replace the gear with a cast iron or steel one. I'm leaning toward steel.
The symptoms.
We've had the truck for six months. Odometer reads 57k and based on general overall appearance of the truck-engine-etc. is probably correct. Increasingly it seemed to be losing power, not that it had a whole lot when we first got it. Got so bad that it would not pull up our relatively flat driveway. Was making a clacking noise from the drivers side rear of the engine, so I thought the coil was bad since my 2003 F-150 V6 had a coil pack go bad that sounded & acted the same. New coil, wires, and plugs seemed to help a lot however my son came home a few days later and noticed a lot of steam coming out from under the hood (roads were wet from rain). He opened the hood and saw the manifolds a "nice" bright orange. Did some reading here and figured the timing was retarded. The timing was way off. Cleaned up the scale on the balancer, put some white paint on 10 degrees BTDC and straightened out the timing. Ran like a champ. Lots of power. Several days and miles later, my son is coming up the road last night doing about 45mph and "Bang", no engine exhaust noise from my vantage. He later said that there was a quick screech/bang, engine quit and he coasted onto our street. Pulled him up the driveway and parked it till this morning. All the plug boots were "goo", no doubt from being cooked with the retarded timing. Did some more reading, pulled the distributor and found a gear stripped of teeth on half the gear and not much left on the other half. The gear on the camshaft appears OK. The engine turns, all the pulleys turn. So the other big question is whether or not we are just dealing with the wrong gear, i.e. cast iron vs. steel, or is there another problem inside the engine.
Any further input would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Peter
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Lew,
Thanks.
Picked up a "reman" distributor from NAPA this morning. They brought in both kinds so we could compare, one with the cast iron gear and one with the steel gear. The pitch of the gear cut is different one to the other. The I.D. of the gear is different one to the other which means the distributor shaft is a different O.D. The cast iron gear flops around on the shaft with the steel gear. Significant price difference between the two as well. Distributor with steel gear +/- $65, with cast iron gear +/- $100.
I can't see any damage to the cam gear but will give it another look tonight before we button it up. Now I need to see if I can get the remains of the distributor gear out of the engine. There would be metal filings but also sheared off pieces of the gear. I should have taken pictures of the gear before we turned it over to NAPA.
Obviously the previous owner put the wrong one in, thus all the problems. The previous owner is an auto repair shop. I don't think I'll bring any vehicle to them to fix.
What's most baffling about this is that even using the VIN number we could not determine which distributor should be used. The NAPA guy called two different Ford dealers as well.
Once we get this all back together, running, & timed, what else should we be looking for?
Thanks,
Peter
Thanks.
Picked up a "reman" distributor from NAPA this morning. They brought in both kinds so we could compare, one with the cast iron gear and one with the steel gear. The pitch of the gear cut is different one to the other. The I.D. of the gear is different one to the other which means the distributor shaft is a different O.D. The cast iron gear flops around on the shaft with the steel gear. Significant price difference between the two as well. Distributor with steel gear +/- $65, with cast iron gear +/- $100.
I can't see any damage to the cam gear but will give it another look tonight before we button it up. Now I need to see if I can get the remains of the distributor gear out of the engine. There would be metal filings but also sheared off pieces of the gear. I should have taken pictures of the gear before we turned it over to NAPA.
Obviously the previous owner put the wrong one in, thus all the problems. The previous owner is an auto repair shop. I don't think I'll bring any vehicle to them to fix.
What's most baffling about this is that even using the VIN number we could not determine which distributor should be used. The NAPA guy called two different Ford dealers as well.
Once we get this all back together, running, & timed, what else should we be looking for?
Thanks,
Peter
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Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 4,558
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Yeah i would have a good look for any peices of the gear . change the oil & filter & you should be ok , when this happens its allways the cast gear that goes the cam should be ok , 10 degs BTDC with spout out , you can set it up a few to like 12 , should run a little better slighty advanced....
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