SonexBuilders.net

This is what every VW timing gear I have ever seen or read about looks like:





This is what mine looks like:


Notice the timing dots located on either side of a tooth instead of on either side of a valley....

Has anybody seen this before? Should I replace it with a different gear? How would I align the cam gear to the gear in the second picture?

This is not an aerovee I presume, which is the only one I've seen. There seems to be only one "valley" between the 2 dots. My question would be, what does the dot on the cam gear look like? My guess is when you put the cam gear onto the timing gear, only 1 position will make sense (cam gear dot between timing gear dots.)

Its not an aerovee, but this gear is the same in every vw engine that I have ever seen... That is except the one in this engine....

Cam gear has a single dot on the peak of a tooth that would align perfectly in the valley of the gear in the first picture, but on my gear it would either be before or after the gear tooth, not in the center as every assembly manual in the world states for a vw engine.

Be careful, not all timing gear have 2 dots on the timing gear teeth to fit the single dot on the cam gear between.
Mine (Engle W100) has a single dot on both camshaft and timing gear, the one on the timing gear is exactly below a "valley" where the cam gear tooth with the dot fits, here's picture of mine:


Given you have two dots but they are positioned below the valleys and not on the teeth, I would say that yours has either the 2 dots not positioned correctly or one dot too many. Impossible to say which.

I'm not sure if there is any other way to check the gear timing.
Do you have a local VW shop where you could possibly borrow a "good" timing gear so you can check which dot to align your cam too?

I have an old gear laying around. When I line it up with the notch on the shaft it is as if the notch and the two dots were cut 1/2 of a tooth off.
As you can see in the picture above, the old (correctly made gear) has a tooth that lines up with the notch on the inside of the gear. If I transpose that down to the new (installed :x ) gear it aligns in a valley.

Consequently, on the alignment dot side the valley marked by the dots on the correct gear (on top) aligns to a gear tooth to the left of the two alignment dots. I would be much more comfortable with this if the notch and tooth on both gears lined up and the timing dots didn't. It seems tome like everything is just off 1/2 tooth and I don't know if that will work.

I suspect that the right answer is to pull off the gear and put on the old one. I'm dragging my feet on that because its a 2 hour trip to the closest press that I have access to. Of course, assembling an engine and then taking it back apart again because the timing doesn't work or a connecting rod smashes the case is more than two hours.... Was hoping someone just said, "yep, seen it before and 1/2 tooth is no big deal..."

Still a chance someone says that?

this one is too weird for me but I suspect it probably won't work, I think correct timing is critical.

The gear will come off using a cheap gear puller from your local auto store, no press required.
I've had to do that on mine.