Bronze oil pump gear issues

[Houle #382]

Just wondering if anyone has seen a post from a guy that lost an engine because his bronze gear came apart. He never stated what brand it was it could have been a China gear for all I know. I have a Milodon bronze gear in my 440 with a roller cam and the last thing I need is to have an issue like the guy did. I do have a brand-new Hughes Engine Melonized gear and shaft and I'm really thinking about swapping them out. Just wondering if anyone has had an issue with the bronze gear with a roller cam.
Thanks

 

[dvw]

I've always run bronze gears with rollers. The current gear has been in the engine 12 years with over 1000 passes. Running a high volume pump at 80 psi as well.
Doug

 

[diesel_lv]

My bronze gear w about 5k miles had very sharp knife edge and always a glittery bronze in the oil. Changed to a Melonized gear, but also changed cam at same time. I recall something about not going from bronze to Melonized w/out making sure cam gear had absolutely no bronze embedded in it.

 

[gtxdana]

The one thing you can guarantee with a bronze gear is that it will wear out. According to the Hughes website, you'll need to clean all of the bronze off of the cam gear before running the melonized gear.
Best luck I've had across various engine makes is a steel billet roller cam and a melonized/hardened steel distributor gear.

 

[Geoff 2]

The term 'bronze' loosely covers a wide range of alloys used to produce bronze. Some will probably wear better than others....

 

[69 GeeTeeX]

I built a 440 based 505 engine with hydraulic roller cam and used the Milodon bronze gear because the Hughes melonized gears were on back order for many months. Later on with around 500 miles on the engine I removed the bronze gear and replaced it with the melonized when it became available again, and haven't had any problems.