Uh oh...found something bad in my oil pan. What "was" this?

It would have caused the distributor gear to walk up a little on the cam gear, making the timing a little off, and possibly causing an inconsistent wear pattern on my gears.

That is about the extent of what I think it would do.

So, is this something I could/should replace, or would I be better off with a new distributor?

 

If it had walked up enough to change the timing you likely would have noticed.

The inconsistent wear patter I can believe though. I bet it would be faster to just pick up a new dist than remove the gearing to put a new bushing on, unless you feel safe finding and putting on a 2-piece (if they even make one).

I'm also not 100% certain of this because I haven't looked at the tooth pattern on the gear inside the engine, but I think the curvature in the gear teeth is supposed to pull the gear downward and not push it upward.

 

was there a pin in it?

 

Pin is still in the shaft. You can see it in the last picture.

 

that cracking can easily occur when the disty's shaft collar is too sloppy. Sloppy chains also add abrubt yanking into the scenario to further the chance of damage as the collar slams up and down against the dist body when you're off and on the throttle very quickly.

You may be able to get a rough idea of how sloppy the collar to body clearance was before it broke by sliding a piece around the pin to see how far up and down the coller travels. Chances are it's beat up pretty good after all that.. but I'm guessing it's well more than .060 clearance.

Best to just get a new disty and be sure to shim the collar a bit tighter to the body for avoiding any more issues later down the road. I usually shim/run them at about .015-.020 clearance and have seen NEW and REBUILT units with clearances in excess of .075 thou. That sort of slop never helps to build consistent timing curves either.

Glad it didn't break the housing, snap your shaft, and/or lockup the oil pump when it happened. Good luck with it.

PS. oops.. almost forgot to mention the cracked exhaust guide shown in post #4. Chances are it will be fine.. but if it was caused by improper rocker arm geometry and/or excessive valve guide wear.. it will progressively get worse and eventually ruin that seat.

 

Take a good look at your distributor cap and rotor. I had this happen once ( never found out why ) and it chewed up the cap because the rotor pushed up too far! I never removed the oil pan, I just got another distributor and stuck it in. I was almost a kid then and this was on a 69 Galaxie with a 302. I drove that car for a year after that and never had a problem! I'll guess the broken pieces are still in that oil pan!

 

I don't think I've ever seen one brake there....

 

Well, I had a slight miss a while back, and pulled the plugs (remember, I had #8 burning dark?) and the top spring inside the distributor cap was bent up a bit, so I re-bent it straight.

That was when I pulled all my rockers, cleaned the holes, and used hi-temp loc-tite on them.

Well, maybe this was my problem all along.

If so, it has been going on for about a year. Or maybe I should say, for the past 50 miles of driving!

 

Looks like dist. to me.

 

one more reasons to put a...magnet... in the oil pan...

 

'Glad you got it figured out.

 

Tear one out of an old hard drive...those suckers are strong.

 

I don't think a valve keeper will be in the oil pan without a valve dropping first. AND they are much smaller. I remember replacing some on some heads I had and I was amazed at what they do.. I would spend the money on a new dist..