I had a remanned engine put in a couple years ago and have subsequently burned through two intermediate shafts (the gear) at about 1k miles each. My local mechanic is stumped as well as several engine builder friends.
1. Has anyone here heard of this as an issue?
2. Does anyone know where I can find more intermediate shafts? The only ford dealer that has them wants about 10x for them.
Failing oil pump with high internal friction or distributor that doesnt turn freely (bad bushings causing lots of friction can cause the gear in the distributor and/or the gear on the intermediate shaft to fail. Running heavy weight oil can also cause gear failure. If the intermediate shaft gear fails, the shaft must be replaced AND the distributor gear must also be replaced. Esslinger sells billet shafts and the corresponding dist gear, but they are quite pricy.
Just another thought, would a timing belt adjusted too tight be putting too much strain on the shaft and bearings?
If you didn't get all the small bits and pieces from the sheared gears and crud out of the oil pan they can cause blockage which can strain the oil pump drive and cause the gears to get chewed up.
(10-22-2020, 11:19 AM)Kuch Wrote: [ -> ]Just another thought, would a timing belt adjusted too tight be putting too much strain on the shaft and bearings?
I don’t believe it is possible to put a timing belt on “too tight”. (Believe me, I have tried to put it on as tightly as possible.) More often it seems like it is not tight enough.
The spring tensioner is designed to take up any slack that might occur—and usually does—with the installation. Due to the design of the system, if you DID somehow get the belt on too tightly, after the installation—when you rotate the belt 360 degrees through its rotation twice—you should be able to feel it binding, I would think.
^^^ Agree 100% Tensioner spring is calibrated to set the timing belt tension correctly (assuming you buy a high quality name brand timing belt kit).
On a side note, when taking the TC on a road trip, one thing I always carry in the trunk is a new timing belt kit just in case it fails, along with other common failure parts like a TFI, spare serp belts, etc) and my "road trip tool box". Never needed it myself, but several years ago at Carlisle, one of our members timing belt broke as quite a number of us were pulling into a restaurant in Carlisle around 7 PM. All parts stores were closed. To make a long story short, using my spare timing belt, we put my spare belt and tensioner on his car in the parking lot and we had his TC up and running within 45 minutes.
(10-25-2020, 01:23 PM)Jeff K Wrote: [ -> ]^^^ Agree 100% Tensioner spring is calibrated to set the timing belt tension correctly (assuming you buy a high quality name brand timing belt kit).
On a side note, when taking the TC on a road trip, one thing I always carry in the trunk is a new timing belt kit just in case it fails, along with other common failure parts like a TFI, spare serp belts, etc) and my "road trip tool box". Never needed it myself, but several years ago at Carlisle, one of our members timing belt broke as quite a number of us were pulling into a restaurant in Carlisle around 7 PM. All parts stores were closed. To make a long story short, using my spare timing belt, we put my spare belt and tensioner on his car in the parking lot and we had his TC up and running within 45 minutes.
Second all that. In addition to those I also have a timing gun with me; I know I could probably set the timing “by ear”, but my thought is just do it once the right way.
Per Jeff’s suggestion I also carry extra ignition switch and connector, and starter solenoid among other parts
I tow along an extra car... Just in case
