If those teeth are as "knife edged" worn thin in the middle as they appear to be, definitely needs a new gear. Try to look down at the cam gear and see how worn it is, too.
Yep, grab a flashlight and peer down inside where the distributor came out of. There is a gear at the end of the camshaft that engages the distributor gear. Take a look at the gear since the distributor is out, good idea to take a look for excessive wear on it.
The cam gear looks good. No sign of wear. The shaft was stuck inside the housing here. Had to spray some liquid wrench in there to pull it apart. Cleaned it up. Should i pull the pickup coil as well?
Pump? Not sure what you mean sorry. This shaft should likely need replacing as well if its worn like this? Im likely to just order a new distributor from TA honestly
Can anybody chime in here with some opinion about the end of this shaft? As its worn as well as my gear im considering just getting a new distributor entirely. Thoughts? Thanks.
I can't tell from the photo. Is it "worn" or is it "polished"? I'd want to see the matching oil pump drive shaft end, is it "worn" the same way? There's no point to putting a virgin-new distributor shaft on a worn oil pump drive shaft. There's no point to putting a virgin-new distributor gear on a eroded cam gear, either. But of the two, I'd be more worried about the cam/distributor gear pairing than the shaft/shaft pairing. The big problem with "New" distributors is that they're all Communist junk. Some are so bad that the Chinese "forgot" to drill the holes in the distributor body for lubing the upper bushing. It's up to the consumer to take the thing apart and re-machine it.
Thanks for the responses guys. These pics may show it better. Both sides of the shaft end are sheared back some. Not a lot, but, its there. The pump turns easily and both the pump shaft and cam gear are in great shape, just the ones on the distributor are both worn and sheared. Assuming this distributor is 40 years old and modules costing 50bucks is whats got me thinking of just putting a new TA performance distributor in there rather than replacing bits of this one. That's what I was weighing the cost/benefits of.
Just a thought. I read this sort of quickly. If this is a quadrajet take a look at your secondary vaccuum pull off and make sure its working correctly. If its not working right it will allow the secondary flapper to open and cause a serious bog. Like I said just a thought. Thanks Rick