My car lost oil pressure yesterday in the middle of a run. After pulling the pan and intake i found out that the oil pump distributor gear was missing 5-6 teeth!!! The gear looks like it was about to let go, all of the remaining teeth are thin and sharp. I have heard about running a bronze gear on aftermarket cams, but mine is stock, what gives?? I do have a high volume oil pump, its been in the car for about a year now. Last time i looked at the oil drive gear, it looked ok.

Why did the gear wear out??

High volume pump-- 138,000 miles(old age)--- something else is wrong

 

Same thing happened to me. I reinstalled my old oil pump drive (which looked good despite having 40k miles on it and had seen at least three different cams), in my new 383 with a new comp cams cam with iron gear I believe. Well, after about 2k miles, I lost oil pressure pulling out of the driveway. Took the intake off and sure enough 5 teeth were missing and the others were paper thin. The cam gear looked good, so I risked it and installed a new drive gear. It's been 7k miles later and so far so good!

 

High volume pumps put more stress on the gear. The pump is naturally harder to turn because of the larger gears required for more volume.

 

The same thing happened to me last week. Is there any stronger gear that we can use or do you just buy a new OEM part?

 

I looked all over the place and couldn't find anything other than OEM, and then you have to buy the whole assy. You can't just use a standard SBC gear as the shaft diameter is different. Standard SBC is .491" and the LT1 oil pump drive uses something like a .450" (can't be sure, but is definitely smaller).

 

.427
Crane CRN-11988-1
Summit has a bronze gear for 39.99, not sure if you can run in on a lt1 or not. I know some cams require you to run a bronze gear, not sure about stock. But i am running it on my car has we speek, i've got about 200 miles on it. I bought it after i posted this thread. I think the bronze is stronger or it doesn't wear against a certain metal.