Technical Does anyone know where to find a set of these?

French Town Flyer is building a 30's style Champ car powered by a Ford big 6. He has a unique timing gear set that he's apparently had a long time. I'd like to find a set and he'd like another set. Does anyone know who made them and/or where to get them? Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Here's his thread, the gears and description are on page 12, post 357. Thanks guys.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/1930s-era-champ-car-new-project.223598/page-12

 

BTT

 

bump
-Dave

 

Anything that was once made can be made again, desire and money together are the only stumbling blocks

 

That's true, I desire a set of these gears and I would stumble a bit if I had to pay someone to custom cut them.

 

at least 6 custom gear shops in the area, just need somthing to design off of dimention-print-gears

 

My mind keeps telling , "Holy Shit, custom cut gears are going to be EXPENSIVE.".

But, after a little thought it dawned on me that in these modern times, with computer operated machines, labor would be insignificant. If the gear shop had the set that already exists so there was no engineering involved, they could probably just scan them in to the computer and tell it to get after it.

Can you make a wild guess about what replicas might cost?

 

I gotta believe that the original piece was made from an existing product. Probably a Cloyes timing gear. There should be no cutting of gear teeth at all. It looks to me like the center was cut out of an aluminum timing gear, some holes were drilled on a rotary table with a bridgport, then a mating hub was spun up on a lathe and drilled the same way the gear was.

 

Seems unlikely they started with a mass production gear set to me. They are straight cut gears and too noisy for passenger car use. No manufacturer has made anything but helical timing gears for most of a hundred years. Even the Model A's had helical gears.
Not saying it's not possible to make a set from production gears, but the center of the gear would need to be thick enough to work with. Most timing gears I've seen are quite thin in cross section except at the teeth and the center.
Best result would be to find a few sets of these gears (or one set) on a shelf somewhere ready to go. That is my hope.

 

I can promise you that is not the case - at a past job I often needed to have one-off gears made and even providing the prints it was not uncommon to spend thousands on a single gear. If you can even get a shop to quote on these I would expect a minimum of $1,000 for the pair but really the sky is the limit.

 

Fabber, you would be partially correct. I went and read the original thread where the OP discusses use of a straight cut gear. However, all(most?) gears are essentially catalog items. The teeth and diameter are all cut to a set of engineering standards, whether they are straight cut or helical, just like splines on a shaft. It is all spelled out in the Machinery Handbook. If you research enough gear manufacturers you will likely find gears in the size need you need but you have to know how to call out specs for a gear and it's mating gear. Custom cut gears, with special diameters and tooth pitches, do exist and are sometimes unavoidable, but the cost of designing and manufacturing such things would be prohibitive to all but a large industrial client.

 

Pretty much what I expected.

 

Probably wouldn't be too hard to adapt something like this to the center of an aluminum cam gear if none turn up.
Bore the center from the Ford gear and turn the belt cogs off this then press them together. Maybe a couple set screws or roll pins to keep them from moving.
There are always options.

 

Two pieces of info are needed for your search. Crank CL to Cam CL and the Dia of the cam gear to fit the housing. Tooth profile can be course like the picture or fine like most racing gear drives. You could get lucky and a Pete Jackson could work without the idlers, and machine the crank gear and make a hub for the cam

 

If anyone wants one of those stupid "noisy" Pete Jackson gear drives for a sbc, just come and take it off the engine, it's yours, the thing is BRAND NEW, engine's never been fired.
I've heard my share of them and all I can say is "WHAT WAS I THINKING!

 

DDD,
I know whereof you speak. If you listen to my start-up video you can hear the gears whining. And that is EXACTLY what I wanted. Older vintage race engines often were supercharged and had a fearsome whine to them. I wanted that sound.

 

Referring to the post in the Frenchtown Flyer thread, "I will be using a set of prototype steel adjustable cam drive gears."
And the first post in this thread describes them thus, "He has a unique timing gear set".

"Prototype" and "unique" imply that there is only one set in existence. So it looks like the chances of finding another set is zero, which means getting more made. Possibly they could be measured up and the outside profile made on a wire EDM machine, since driving a camshaft is a fairly low power application.

 

I thought I did too, this engine is a fairly well built street 350.
Back when I was going to all the big "lawn chair" type events you could hear them things coming and coming and coming, cruising around the fairgrounds.
The thing about it is most of them were stock sbc engines, they didn't quite hit the mark.
I think I lost the "need" for all that when I built a real serious engine with a real gear drive, a fixed idler Milodon.

 

DDD, Full disclosure - this replica car is what many will consider a total fake. And some "purists" have already told me so. Nothing about my car is old - 'cept the driver LOL. I built the body and chassis. The engine looks like a twin cam aluminum DOHC. It isn't. The rear looks like a quick-change. It isn't. It will sound like it is supercharged. It isn't. It will be run mostly on circle tracks and maybe some parades where hopefully some young hot-rodders-in-training may think, "Oh, so that's what those old cars looked like / sounded like", etc. I know the whining sound isn't everybody's cup o' tea. That's OK.

Full disclosure #2: I would very much like to get in touch with the person who supplied me these gears because I owe him money. And I want to pay him, even after several years of being in arrears. We had agreed that I could wait to pay him until I tried the gears. I am sincerely sorry it so long to get the engine running. But I want to make good on my promise. [Now watch - a bunch of scammers will step forward and say they are that guy - pay me!]

 

Ford "big" 300 six industrial engines use steel timing gears. It would be very easy to bore the center for a larger hub and drill a Bolt pattern for adjusting it.

 

Hoping you got my intent, I really wasn't singling you out, just my personal feelings more than anything. If it puts a smile on your face you've met your goal.

 

I've never seen a factory set of steel timing gears.
I've got some factory gears that have a steel crank gear and a phenolic cam gear. Coarse toothed.
I've got some factory gears that have a steel crank gear and a cast iron cam gear. Coarse teeth.
I've got some factory gears that have a steel crank gear and a cast iron cam gear. Fine teeth.
I've got some aftermarket gears that have a steel crank gear and an aluminum cam gear. Coarse teeth.

The problem with any and all of these gears - aside from the fact that none of them have straight-cut teeth - is that there is not enough metal in the center of the gears to make the hub strong enough. All those gears either have lightening holes or a wavy structure with little meat for the multi index holes.

 

I bought a steel solid gear. It was for an industrial engine. Noisy as hell but kept the knarly cam from eating the stupid fibre gear. It was helical cut though.

 

There is a way to get the supercharger whine you know.
It involves installing a supercharger.

 

It looks like you could bore out a stock metal camshaft gear, leaving an outer ring with teeth, and machine up or modify an existing adjustment mechanism to press in.
This is still a lot of machining, but at least you wouldn't have to cut the gear teeth.

 

so, what is the pitch diameter, and the tooth count? of the cam gear. We can divide that in half to figure out what the crank gear is.

 

That was my thought exactly, in post #13. Should be able to do that little job in a couple hours.... or with my previous experience at estimating in mind, about 3 days. Still not complicated or very technical like cutting gears. Just simple lathe work.

 

You're right, Fabber.
I read through all the posts too quickly.
It is usually easier to buy existing parts and modify, than start from scratch. Especially gears.

 

So how would you convert the helical teeth to straight cut whinney teeth, which was why I wanted these gears in the first place? I am capable of changing cam timing with offset keyways but I can't be more whinney [ba-doomp-pa!]

 

We're still waiting for the dimensions of the gears, or the distance between the crank and cam centerline s

Sent from my Trimline