Crown Cam Gears

["Bruce Hevner" <scramblr@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>he said he got a call from Crown today, and not to use any cam gears 
>they have sent in the last 6 months, as they were not heat treated right
and 
>will self destruct...

I believe that's what I referred to a while back. The cam gears on AMC
motors APPEAR (I have NOT had any tested) to be WAY to soft. If I was having
as many problems as some folks appear to be I would engage the efforts of a
heat treatment facility to test and possibly re-heat treat these gears.
 The 22r Toyota has the same type problem with its distributor drive gear.
It ONLY drives the distributor and yet we found excessive wear when we
started turning these motors more than 7000 RPM. A file test of the gear
shows it to be VERY soft. Much like the AMC gears. I talked with a local
heat treating shop who agreed that their appeared to be a mismatch between
the gears. But for what it was going to cost to treat the gears it made more
sense to just replace them as needed. Of course in the Toyota a gear failure
just stops the motor unlike the AMC which can destroy the entire engine.
My thoughts are a better match in hardness between the two gears would cure
a LOT of the problems
But hey,,, that's just me!
Bruce Hevner