[njsteve]

Those nylon gears were a big problem back in the day. (yeah, I'm old). I remember the first cold day of the season and you'd get several pontiac owners getting their cars towed in for timing chain jobs. One good backfire and the gear would strip chunks of nylon off. If you were lucky the engine would not restart. Otherwise those pieces would make their way to the oil pan and fully clog the oil pickup. After a timing chain job, the better mechanics would always pull the pan and clean out the sump area and pickup to get the debris out.

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P.S. I love these forensic tear down threads. Keep going!