aluminum timing gear recommendation

atch

atch

Senior Member
I've found a couple of posts about timing gears but nowhere have I found a recommendation for who makes or where to buy the best aluminum Model A timing gear.

What say you? Is one better than another or are they all the same?
 
atch said:
I've found a couple of posts about timing gears but nowhere have I found a recommendation for who makes or where to buy the best aluminum Model A timing gear.

What say you? Is one better than another or are they all the same?
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Dan McEachern, hands down. dmcgears@yahoo.com, (510)532-8228

He also makes the timing gear in bronze, and steel crank gears. His gears are works of art.
 
I have used the Snyder’s aluminum gear with the stock crank gear in an engine and it worked well. Lots of folks have complained about the aluminum gear being “noisy” but I could not hear it over the noises in the car. Good luck with you project….
 
There are clearly at least two "generic" manufacturers of aluminum timing gears in addition to McEachern. The Snyders gear looks different from the gear sold by, e.g., CW Moss. I find it hard to believe there's any functional difference between these three gears if they're all made to the same size spec. This isn't a jet turbine we're talking about.
 
Good evening Mike.
I have been running the aluminum camshaft gear from Don Snyder for 7,000 miles now. It works exactly as it should. Compared to the previous, worn Pertinax gear, I cannot detect any increase in noise levels.
 

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KMBeers said:
I have used the Snyder’s aluminum gear with the stock crank gear in an engine and it worked well. Lots of folks have complained about the aluminum gear being “noisy” but I could not hear it over the noises in the car. Good luck with you project….
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I too have heard complaints about aluminum being noisy always from guys that have never tried them! I've run them for over 60 years and have never had a noisy one! One had a casting flaw in the center of a tooth, I ran it for at least 20 tears, and it is still good!
 
Here is a set, installed. Pardon the goofy angle, the engine is on a stand.
 

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Someone today mentioned something that I'd like your collective opinions about. It was suggested that perhaps fiber timing gears are designed that way to fail before something else fails catastrophically. Or perhaps Henry just wanted to save a cent or two per car.

What say ye?
 
Guten Mittag Mike.

In this country, these "Novotex" spur gears were installed in four- and six-cylinder V-engines until mid-1985. The reason for this choice was smooth running, as the plastic gears operated against the steel crankshaft gear with a slight preload.
However, this solution was not considered ideal, as these camshaft gears would wear out after an average of 120,000 to 140,000 km in the six-cylinder models; in the four-cylinder models, due to the presence of an auxiliary balance shaft, they lasted only 80,000 km.
There were some experimental production runs utilizing lapped metal gears (steel, I believe?), but these produced a high-pitched singing at high RPM. This was deemed too intrusive for vehicles in the 6-cylinders luxury class.
The more comfortable solution was the toothed belt, though this, too, suffered from a poor service life.


In the case of the simple Model A, I suspect that the primary motivation was actually cost-saving rather than noise reduction. After all, as metal gears, they demand significantly higher manufacturing precision, furthermore, the lapping process, which required forced pairing, had to be performed largely by hand, piece by piece.
 
I recently read an SAE Transactions article about the ‘29 Chevy engine, which also used phenolic resin (“Celeron”) timing gears. The head of engineering for the project said that they decided to use Celeron gears because they found that, while the gears would wear down, they also appeared to expand by absorbing oil from the crankcase. He said the rate of wear and the rate of expansion balanced each other perfectly. I can try to find the article if people want to know more.
 
alexiskai said:
There are clearly at least two "generic" manufacturers of aluminum timing gears in addition to McEachern.... I find it hard to believe there's any functional difference between these three gears if they're all made to the same size spec.
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The only difference may be in the material and heat treat - there are many grades of aluminum and levels of heat treat. I don't think anyone advertises those details.
 
ModelA29 said:
The only difference may be in the material and heat treat - there are many grades of aluminum and levels of heat treat. I don't think anyone advertises those details.
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Materials, sure to be different, but Dan is a craftsman and that is reflected in finish and more importantly tolerances maintained.

I have stacks of metal gears, some are just better than others.

John
 
I have an aluminium timing gear in all of my cars with mileages ranging from 10,000 miles to about 80,000. If there is any noise coming from them, I can't hear it but my wife says I am deaf too!
I'm sure they all came from Snyders over a period of 20 years or more. That's good enough fr me.
 
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