A while back i bought a 350 distibutor for converting to 455, for my 455. long story short i forgot about the 350 gear being in my collection of parts and put it back on. today i spend an hour trying to stab the damn distributor. i tryied a bare housing -- went in. ok. put a distributor shaft throught the housing and engage withthe oil pump. ok. must be the gear. ou: now i remember! went though the bag o goodies an found 2 455 gears. Here is the tip for those of you who do not know.... 455 -- 13 tooth 1.145" approx diameter @ teeth 350 -- 14 tooth 1.245" approx diameter @ teeth the good part is a 14 tooth will not go where a 13 is supposed to. The bad part is, i suspect a 13 will go where a 14 will go, but you won't know it until you lose time upon start and/ or damage the cam gear. many of you know this, but while it was on my mind i thought i would share this with anone who has not crossed this bridge.
good to know thanks.i pulled a 350 out of a Skylark and am putting in a 455,thanks for saving me alot of head scratching.
Tell this to the whoever rebuilds and distributes distributors to the autoparts stores, maybe even the autoparts counter persons themselves. I work at a repair shop and ordered a remanufactored distributor (HEI) from our parts supplier specifically telling him it was for a 455 engine. The new distributor comes and I attempt to install it and it will not seat all the way. Stupid me whacked it with a hammer and broke my oil pump shaft. When I tried putting the old one in it dropped right in (that was when I saw the shaft broken and no I did not damage the cam gear). Anyways I took the old gear, which I was trying to avoid doing cause it had wear, and put it on new distributor and it dropped right in. Then I took my spare oil pump shaft (yes after breaking so many I got into the habit of keeping a spare in the trunk) installed and the car fired up. So i learned first hand that there was a difference, unlike an oldsmobile distributor which is interchangeable (my 70 cutlass 350 to 455 swap) and the parts place unknowingly gave me a distributor set up for a 350 instead of a 455. Allen allioop108@aol.com
