Hello all, I think I figured out what has been causing my distributor gear to wear out so quickly. When I first discovered the problem I think I misdiagnosed it as the oil pump gears binding due to improper clearance issues. I took out the KB spacer and tall, high volume pump gears & went to the T/A plate and stock gears & a bronze distributor gear (as the wearing dist. gear eventually wore out the cam gear) since if it happened again I would only have to change one gear. Well, after a short run time it did happen to the bronze gear. Again thinking it was the oil pump, I took the T/A plate out & just stuck with the stock setup. I installed a steel gear this time & again shortly after running, the gear had started to get chewed up on two gears with a wear pattern in the center of the gear. If left to run longer it would have ground the gear on all the teeth to sharp edges & then done the same to the cam gear probably ending with oil pump failure and engine damage. This time I pulled the timing chain cover & when I pulled the cam gear & then the pump eccentric, I noticed two small "F"'s opposite each other, on the side that was facing the chain. The shop manual photo was unclear even though they made reference to the way the eccentric should be installed. Thanks to "trishieldfan", who sent me a good photo, I saw that the gear had been installed improperly by the mechanic that assembled it some years ago. When I simulated putting the cam gear & eccentric together the "wrong way" & then meshing the dist. gear with the cam gear, I saw how the dist. gear must be contacting the flat side of the pump eccentric. When put the right way, the "oil groove" seems to have enough spacing to miss the dist. gear. I hope this is the problem & will keep you all updated when I reassemble everything. Thanks for all your input guys. Mario.
