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

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Lasalle

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Did 1973 318 V8 have plastic teeth on the timing gears from the factory?
 
Did 1973 318 V8 have plastic teeth on the timing gears from the factory?
Sure enough. Here’s the 318 in my ‘73 Swinger at around 120k on the clock.
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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.
 
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.
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.
 
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.
Be a good idea to change it.
You're more than likely pick up lost "umph" when you hit the pedal .
 
What about the chain? Does that stretch and need to be changed also?
 
Last year I bought a truck that had a worn out 1985 318 in it. I put 15w40 in it and then tried to start it on a 25* morning. Bam, shelled out the nylon timing set and bent 7 push rods. 2 so bad I couldn't remove them. Good times.

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I once bought a 78 Ford LTD II "not running" which I "humorously" called "the SKUD missile." (Low flying, poorly guided missile.)

Anyhow what had happened is that plastic junk had come off the sprocket, lodged in the oil pump, broke the pump drive AND THE CAM GEAR and so the crank was tore up some too. I bought a re-ring kit, a reground cam kit, new pump and cam gear, etc, and threw it together and drove it to work for about 100+ miles a day for something like 3 years.
 
Grumpy Jenkins ran those Chebby engines with Jenuine GM plastic toothed timing sets cuz he said they produced less harmonics at 9,000 rpm.

Who can question ol' Grumpy?
 
I once bought a 78 Ford LTD II "not running" which I "humorously" called "the SKUD missile." (Low flying, poorly guided missile.)

Anyhow what had happened is that plastic junk had come off the sprocket, lodged in the oil pump, broke the pump drive AND THE CAM GEAR and so the crank was tore up some too. I bought a re-ring kit, a reground cam kit, new pump and cam gear, etc, and threw it together and drove it to work for about 100+ miles a day for something like 3 years.
Impossible...everything has to perfect to run!!!!
 
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