Did 1973 318 V8 come from factory with plastic teeth on timing gears?

Lasalle said

Thanks for your replies and pictures. Mine is a 73 Swinger also with 99K. I am not sure yet if that is a problem but a lot of other plastic mechanical parts on the car already broke.

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Mine was not a problem yet. But it could not have been much longer before it was. I dropped the oil pan for a gasket and found all the plastic pieces in the pan. Decided at that time I might as well toss a cam/lifter set in while I was there and swap over to 4 bbl intake.