The camshaft on my 1929 Standard Eight is riffle drilled to lubricate the nine camshaft bearings and the camshaft sprocket / chain at the front. Oil is fed from the rear main bearing and flows forward through the camshaft. At the front, the riffle drilling is "plugged" with a cup plug but this has a rough hole drilled through it approximately 3/8" in diameter. This seems huge in comparison to the riffle drilling diameter and I fear that the flow will largely dump out the front and minimize oil flow to the individual camshaft bearings. Does anyone have any insights on whether or not this cup plug should be drilled and, if so, what diameter should it be. Thanks for any advice.

Thanks for this lead. Always good to know there are folks you can turn to.

Pitfalls I do not need. If you have had experience with this engine, I'm all ears. Sounds like you have had learning experiences along the way in your rebuild.

Thanks - I'll look both gears over again. Hard to believe they wouldn't have marks knowing how thorough Packard was.

Thanks for the advice. I share your experience with part availability. My local Packard dealership unfortunately closed long ago and parts procurement has been a challenging activity all of its own.

I am headed for having new babbit poured for the rods since they are in pretty rough shape and with them I'll probably be headed for a touch up on the crank. Also have top ring reversal wear steps in the cylinder bores so over sized pistons are in my future. And, it all adds up!

Not 100% sure I'm following your distributor timing experience. What do you mean by matching the dots on the cam and gear? Are you referring to the dots on the cam sprocket and the crank sprocket? Those I can easily see matching up but the two bevel gears (one on the cam and one on the distributor drive) are the ones that have no marks in my engine and at least 17 different engagement options.

I am in the process of tearing down and rebuilding a 1929 standard Eight Engine. I have a couple of questions that I need help with:

1. How is the cam removed from the aluminum crankcase? I have removed the 6 cam bearing retaining pins along with the front cam bearing plate (located behind the cam drive sprocket). I have tried pulling it forward (out the front of the engine) but a couple of cam lobes come up against their respective cam bearings and all movement stops. I suspect when new the bearings and cam slide out together but perhaps years of dirt / corrosion are locking things up. Suggestions?

2. How is the distributor / oil pump drive gear timed to the mating gear on the camshaft? I believe each of these bevel gears has 17 teeth and I don't see any timing marks on any of them. During assembly, the distributor drive gear is held in place with a cast aluminum bushing that in turn is held down by the cylinder block so any re-timing of the gears means a big tear up. I know there is some timing adjustment that can be done by rotating the distributor, but it seems if the gears are too far out, the distributor will be in some wildly incorrect orientation. Does the distributor drive shaft with its slightly off-center drive slot want to be oriented in a particular way with cylinder #1 at TDC? I'm puzzled.