tach gear rotation?

[A. McDaniel]

Hello
I just put a new MSD distributor into my c3 and found that my tach does not work correctly. It just quivered without any real readings and then my cable broke. Thinking it was just the cable I replaced it. The same thing happened and upon removing the cable from the distributor I noticed the gear was turning counter clockwise. When I turned the cable by hand counter clockwise the same thing happened, just a quiver. When I turn it clockwise the tach rpm goes up as it should. Is there any explanation as to why the gear would be moving in the opposite direction??

Thanks for any insight anyone can provide.
Alex

[Joe L.]

Re: tach gear rotation?

Alex-----

Check to see if the MSD distributor that you have is a model set up to work with a gear drive cam rather than a chain drive.

[Eric H.]

Re: tach gear rotation?

Joe -

The small block cam shaft gear drives that I just looked at in the Summit catalog would appear to turn the camshaft in the same direction.

Huh???? Is there a direct gear drive without the "idlers"? Am I missing something here?

Ric

[Joe L.]

Re: tach gear rotation?

Rick-----

Yes, there is. For instance, many original ZL-1 crate engines (never PRODUCTION, though) used a gear drive system which resulted in reverse camshaft rotation. As far as I know, such systems are still produced and sold. The street gear drive set-ups, most notably those manufactured by Pete Jackson, use idler gears to achieve the same camshaft rotation as chain drive.

[Eric H.]

Wow! Interesting! Thanks. *NM*

[Tom H.]

Re: Wow! Interesting! Thanks.

I've got the MSD distributor for my car and not yet installed. The rotation is the same as the stock. I did notice that you can flip the drive on the MSD. Don't know what that would do to the rotation. From your post, I can't imagine whats wrong.