I purchased a 66 Malibu a couple weeks ago. The owner previous to the guy that I bought the car from rebuilt a 350 and transplanted it into the car. I don’t know much about what parts he used during the rebuild other than he installed a gear drive in stead of a timing chain.

I finally couldn’t stand the noise any longer and pulled the timing chain cover to replace the gear drive with a double roller timing chain. It’s a good thing I did; the whole unit was getting ready to go south. One of the keepers had broken which, was permitting one of the idler gears to start wearing through the timing chain cover.

Now here is the question. Is there suppose to be a spacer/thrust washer that fits between the cam and the cam timing gear or does the cam timimg gear just bolt directly to the cam. I don’t have a book and it looks like if I bolt the timing gear directly to the cam, the timing gear may rub on the block.

Thanks in advance

no, no spacer or shim. it wouldn't help anyway. There is very often an interference between the back of the chain and the boss around the main oil galley. the cast iron boss has to be ground down enough to clear the chain. This can be (and has been) done, but it's tricky because you really can't get any of the iron grindings or material from whatever you use to grind with in the engine.