whats the best way to check cam/distrib gear engagement?

im making a sheetmetal intake manifold and i need to know how high my distrib should be.

i can get it close by measuring another manifold, but how can i doublecheck myself?







now i DO have a junk block and heads that im using for when im testing...

what i COULD do is cut a hole in the block so that i could see the engagement.....
if i do that, whats the best way to cut cast iron? i do NOT have any compressed air.

 

without looking at an intake i'll say this: lay intake on a known flat surface, like a granate surface plate, or even a table saw or similar surface and measure the height with a surface gage or a depth mike through the hole to the surface plate

 

For Part 2, cast iron cuts well with a regular high-speed steel tool and kerosene or thinned lard oil as a coolant.

 

Having the distributor slightly higher or lower isn't a big deal with cam gear engagement. The gears will deal with slight variances. It's more of an issue of OIL PUMP DRIVE SHAFT engagement. You don't want to bottom the distributor shaft hard against the oil pump drive shaft- bad things happen. They need to be sufficiently engaged but at least .025" from bottomed out against eachother. If it's too tight then double-gasketing the distributor is an easy low-buck fix that works just fine. Too loose is a different story, but that's hardly ever the case.

 

heh, how critical is the depth of the distrib?



and vader, kerosene or thinned lard oil??

o_O

both thoes sound a lil odd to me.. one being a fuel, and the other being animal fat.........

 

Kerosene is also an oil, albeit a very light one. It, and lard oil are time-honored tool coolants in machining mild steel and cast iron. In my personal experience, I've seen powdered soap flakes, chicken fat, dry compressed air, and a lot of other unexpected products being used as coolants and lubricants for everything from extrusion, drawing, forging, and machining metals. This is in addition to the more common oils, water solubles, and synthetic products used as machining coolants.

 

I've also heard that in eons past, tyrannical sadistic kings would use the blood of slaves to lubricate their mighty engines of war.

You may wish to check with local ordinances before attempting this yourself, however.

 

not exactily a lubricant, but i read the vikings ran their boats over live slaves or captives as they let them slide down the ways and into the water after they were built for good luck or an offering to their gods. the point is (like there is a point) human blood most likely isn't the best lubricant for machine tools. i prefer to machine cast iron with nothing except compressed air as a coolent

 

Unrelated to your question, but what gauge metal are you actually using?

i/e on the head intake side and the valley?

Did you consider SS also?

Just curious.

 

To get the height right, measure from the block mating surface across the back of a stock one, to the dist hole surface. The dist may not be absolutely perpendicular to the engine axis, so you might want to check the angle carefully. Although, a slight variation in the angle (within a degree or 2) won't hurt too much, since the bottom of the dist housing immediately above the gear is positively located by the place in the block that it fits into, where it completes the oil passage that it goes through. You might want to measure a handful of stock ones and find an average. As Damon said, the exact height isn't that critical; it just needs to be low enough to engage the pump correctly, high enough not to bind against the pump drive (which would smash the one oil pump gear against the cover and destroy the pump); it needs to roughly center the dist gear on the cam gear, and mate to the oil passage area correctly enough to seal (some of the aftermarket dist mfrs acc lathe-cut O-rings to their hsgs for that). I'd estimate that you have a good .025" of tolerance in that dimension, just judging by the variation in gasket thickness I've seen over the years. Also, don't forget that front-to-rear and side-to-side tolerance in the hole location will affect the angle that the dist intersects the intake at.