302 Windsor Timing Chain Alignment – Seriously?

By: Bob Goodson
April 20, 2021

Please subscribe to the YouTube channel if you have not already.  Also, find us on Facebook and Instagram as Purist Motorsports.  Don’t forget to like and share our content.

There are many things going on behind the scenes right now.  That will bring about some amazing content.  Stay tuned.  We’ve had very little time to get things moving on the race car motor but we have been working on it here and there in 30 minute stints.  

As you can see there are a bunch of old school parts on this motor.  The Crane 1.7 rockers are some we’ve had on the shelf for about 4-5 years.  Our investment on those were $130. They are the original Ford Cobra rockers with the part number. 

We’ve been able to get the heads on the motor and the rockers mounted.  When we were going through the motions rotating the motor to set up the rockers we noticed an issue.  Can you see it?

If you look real close you can see the timing chain is REALLY tight.  Also, the chain edge on the crank gear is flush with the gear face.  That is not good.  

In the top pic you can see that the crank gear is actually farther out than the cam gear.  So the set chain is misaligned.  We noticed this when we were rotating the motor and every other chain link would make a “tink” sound rolling onto the gear.  

What this means is that we’re going to have to do one of two things.  We will have to space out the cam gear or we will have to machine off about 9/64″ of the back of the crank gear.  

The downside of spacing out the cam gear is that it can put added stress on the end of the cam.  We’re looking at over 1/8″ of spacing and it just doesn’t seem like a good idea to do that on the cam gear.  

So what we’re going to do is take the crank gear to the machine shop and have 9/64″ shaved off the back side.  We have confirmed that the gear is fully seated against the crank.  There is no more room for it to go farther in.  

At least this is three steps forward and one step back.  Forward progress has been made.  This just adds to the timeline.  Par for the course.  

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe To The News for Purists

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our content and projects.

You have Successfully Subscribed!