'66 TIMING COVER RAPPING NOISE CON'T

[Rob A.]

I removed the timing cover and found some scraping against the front recessed areas. The chain is tight, well oiled and measures almost 7/8" wide. It appears to be just scraping the cover on the recessed areas. Cloyes tells me that this timing set, 9-1110 was supposed to fit without a clearance problem. The cam manufacturer said no additional thrust plates, cam buttons, etc.. should be required for this application. The cover appears to be original, with the center bolt hole for the oil pan. I'm wondering what the width was of the orignal chain installed on these. I guess I'll be installing a narrower, 5/8" or 3/4" timing set to get rid of the interference.

[Doug C.]

Re: '66 TIMING COVER RAPPING NOISE CON'T

Rob, If the rubbing is minor it would be a lot less work to use two cover gaskets to increase the thickness and clearance.An additional gasket should not cause a problem with the oil pan mating surface. Also make sure the cover has not been squashed in a bit at the recessed area's.

[Rob A.]

Re: '66 TIMING COVER RAPPING NOISE CON'T

Doug,

I thought about using an extra gasget, since the scraping is so minor. I just don't want to have to go back in if it still hits the cover. I found a Cloyes timing set with a 5/8" chain, (C-3011) almost 1/4" norrower than the one I removed. According to Cloyes tech service, this is the size that originally came on the engine. It is not a double roller, but certainly would not rub on the cover. Thanks for your suggestion...

[Joe L.]

Re: '66 TIMING COVER RAPPING NOISE CON'T

Rob----

The Cloyes C-3011 timing set is equivalent to the OEM set originally installed on all 1966 427s. It differs from the originals in that the C-3011 uses a cast iron cam sprocket rather than the aluminum/nylon sprocket originally used in PRODUCTION. This is a good thing; you WANT the cast iron sprocket if you're going to use an original Morse or early-link style timing set.

I do think that you are suffering from a distorted timing cover, even though the distortion might not be apparent. Nevertheless, you are probably doing the right thing by going with the thinner, original style timing set. That should eliminate all possibilities of interference and will perform quite well. L-88s and ZL-1s originally used this set-up.

[Rob A.]

Re: '66 TIMING COVER RAPPING NOISE CON'T

Joe,

Thanks for the helpful response...I appreciate it.