I pulled my Oil pan last night to replace a faulty oilpump and found lots of plastic looking peices. I'm figuring that it is part of a nylon timing gear. I Just want to confirm that GM was still using the nylon camgear for the timing chain in my engine when it was new.. its an 86 TPI. I really can't believe that the timing gear would be failing already as the engine only has 60 K on the clock.

 

Well, I don't know about the timing gear, I thought that was done with in the 70's but maybe not. One thing seems obvious; your oil pump may be just fine. Once you clean the screen it might be good to go. Chevy pumps are cheap though, so I guess it won't hurt to drop one in.

 

Ya, I'm replacing it. I really don't want to take any chances on it going out any how. I'm not going to keep the 305 forever but it do want it to last a while.

As for the gear. I thought that as well ( thought that was done with in the 70's but maybe not)but was unsure as to when they stopped using the nylon ones. A freind is pretty confident that has a nylon gear in it. Worst part about it though I can't tell if the larger pieces of plastic are teeth from the gear or not. they sort of resemble it, but not entirely. Oh well I guess I'll know tomarrow for sure as I'll have the front end tore down.

 

Be sure to answer the question here so that we will all know from now on.

Good luck with your repairs.

 

I had an 84 Olds cutlass that had the nylon gear.
It actual isn't a nylon gear the teeth are but the gear is still metal

 

Ok for those who want to know. My engine is out of an 86 IROC. Its a 305 TPI. What I found in the pan was a pile of plastic/nylon. Plus a lot of sluge. This engine had set since around 2005 till now. It supposed to be around 60,000 miles on it. As in my earlier posts I was wondering if GM was still using Nylon teeth on the CAM Gears for the timing sets. Well, They definatly were. I'm pretty surprised that it didn't skip a tooth as loose as the chain was. As I turned it over by hand to line up the marks it almost jumped twice. (also explains why I could never get the timing right)

Part of the Nylon is still on the cam gear but not much is left as you can see. You may also see that the mark for the cam gear is still showing in the plastic/nylon on the gear (go figure). Anywho, this is what I took out. It is pretty nasty looking.



I pulled the front main cap to check a bearing as my oil pressure quit and that was the whole reason for the tear down. The bearing looked as if it had hardly any miles on it. Still showing the babet(sp) coating. (Really weird) I would say that it hasn't ever been apart though. Guess I got lucky. The LT1 I got will just get put on the back burner for later.