advance has them for 89 for a reman but i am still waiting to hear from the shop to see what they have found out.

 

Well i finally called the shop today to find out what was taking so long and after being put on hold for about 30 mins they told me that it was a bad oil pump. My question is would a bad oil pump cause the truck to stop running and not crank up. It sounds just like it did when my distributer broke last month. What would the symtoms of a bad oil pump be.
Thanks

 

No oil pressure and ultimately a failed engine... I do not believe that a bad oil pump will cause the distributor to eat drive gears...

 

thats what i though. if the oil pump went out then the truck would continue to run until it got to hot and seized right. i think that they dont want to tell me that the distributer they put in a month ago has failed again.

 

Quick question....Can you remove the plugs and rotate the engine manually and "feel" the distributor and notice something if the gears are grinding?

 

Ok well i got some info back today. The shop said that the gear on the distributer was broke again and he thinks the only thing that would cause this is a bad or going bad oil pump. He said the pump must be binding the distributer and cause it to break. Total cost to replace the pump was 860 and he said he would replace the gear on the distributer for free. First does it sound like the pump could have done this. Second is this price fair and should good along with the repair.
Thanks people.

 

any opinion from anyone

 

This is what the bottom of the distributor looks like:

*picture from a 1996 4.3L Astro distributor I have*

I am still not buying it. And here is why... The oil pump drive has a slot that fits to the flat blade drive on the bottom of the distributor shaft. The drive gear only serves to hold the oil pump drive centered on the distributor shaft. The only way it could break the gear is if the oil pump shaft was trying to move away from center. If it were locking up, I would say it would try to snap off the blade, not break the bear... And even at that, it would simply crack the gear, most likely up through the roll pin hole. This would not result in a chewed up gear right away.

 

Well thanks for that info. I just going to have him replace the distributer and try driving it again. Just for the chance that it may work. Then if it dose it again then i will look into getting the cam replaced or just finding a lower miles motor to put in it. Thanks for all the help guys.

 

I had this happen on a 460 Ford engine. What happens is the dist gear is bronze and is designed to shear, the oil pump picked up a piece of debris and got stuck in the rotors. After 2 sets of gears I pulled the oil pump and tore it apart. That's when I found that tiny piece of metal in the pump. I cleaned it out and it ran just fine. It may be something to look into, seeing how its a high mileage engine.

Sometimes it will take out the roll pin as well.