I know some people had issues with the gear drive getting striped on some aftermarket cams. They used the lunati everwear gear on their oil pump drives along with a pro-jection drive saver. Part number 89032lun.

 

I have had this happen twice ,first after a rebuild at about 5000 miles. Replaced everything again. Second was found just by chance while doing a cam swap. But it was not all the way shredded so I left it together and did the cam and another new gear. So I have installed 3 gears. All new gm. Last time around I shimmed the gear and added an oiling groove in the drive housing.

 

The Lunati Everwear gear is total **** and should not be trusted. I replaced my OEM gear needlessly which only showed very minor wear after 20K miles. The Lunati **** gear was on the verge of every tooth being worn off in less than 1K mies. My experiece is the same as others on this board as well as LTXtech.

Avoid this part like *** hemorrhaging, bloody herpes.

Only use a GM melonized gear and check it from time to time.

 

This is what scares me from ever doing a cam swap.... I hear these horror stories of stripped gears. I don't want to be stranded somewhere because of something so simple or blowing the motor.

 

So the new GM gears are "melonized" and are better than the ones put in from the factory? Correct me if I am wrong. Anyone have part numbers?

 

I gave you the part number in post #18.

 

The one I just bought is GM 1103868...don't know if the gear is "melonized" or not.

 

Your right.. now that I remember, there were a few post about the lunati gear drives shearing off after a few hundred miles. I know most people thought it was a bad batch by lunati but I would trust the GM stuff instead. I believe the GM part number is 19052845 just for the gear itself I know this one states it's Melonized.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/nal-19052845

 

oops you're right, I missed that. Thank you, Sir!

 

But is that for the LT1 oil pump drive? I didn't see anything that mentioned it.

 

that's the whole assembly part number..yes it's for LT1.

http://www.rmsautoparts.com/proddetail.php?prod=1103868

 

Yeah I google'd that number and the driveshaft and the gear showed up seperatly.

 

I put in a brand new assembly that i got from gmparts direct. com. It comes with a melonized gear already on it. Its been afew hundred miles and so far so good. Im not overly worried because i plan on building a new engine over the fall/ winter anyway

 

the post with the summit link is just the gear it self not the whole assembly..you could just swap them out if your oil drive isn't cracked on the top part.

 

Okay finally got around to getting the intake off. The gear is stripped out pretty bad.



The bolt holding it on wasn't very tight. I was able to loosen it with just a socket in my hand. Doubt that had anything to do with it though.

The cam looks to be fine. Here are some pics, what do you guys think?







random pics





So I have some questions.

1. I want to put the best gear in I can. Does everyone still recommend the new melonized GM gear? I'd just like to prevent this if possible.

2. Should I just pour a few quarts of oil down the hole where the gear goes to kind of flush out the debris? I let a little oil out to look at it and it looks a little bit metalicy but not very bad. Im also going to get a magnetized drain plug.

3. I might replace the lifters while im in here cause they've been kind of noisy for a while. Any suggestions? Im pretty sure they all lost the oil out of them and have to come out anyways.

4. In the pic below, is it normal for the inside of the intake so oily? The TB looks pretty bad also.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to answer my n00bie questions

 

the TQ for the bolt that holds the gear drive in is 13 ft lbs. DO NOT over tighten this bolt or you WILL crack/break the plastic top of the gear assembly

the bolt should have taken VERY little effort to remove. 13 ft lbs is not very much so be carefull. I know people have cracked the plastic on old drives because the plastic get brittle.

 

So i've been reading and it sound like this is just going to happen again. Who makes one that isn't going to fail?

 

The cam is fucked. Needs to be replaced.

 

Really? I thought it looked good still.

 

Rotate it and look at it as you go. The gears on the cam are shredded. Although not as bad as the oil drive gear there is still damage and it needs to be replaced.