Reply to "Camshaft Distributor Gear Damage...?"

I'd want to closely inspect the cam gear and that isn't going to happen looking thru a small hole from 8" away. So since its not hard to pull the cam with the engine in place, you might as well order the necessary gasket sets right now. If its a stock or stock-type hardened cast cam and you don't want to replace it with something better- of which there are many, you might get away with Dremel-polishing the cam's chipped teeth. Do NOT rely on a new distributor gear to 'polish things up'.

Note also that stock distributor gears can be replaced using your original distributor and following Ford's guidelines. But Loc-tite that nut that came loose this time- or discard the mod! This is the second 351-C in a Pantera I've heard of that was messed up by a bolted-in mod coming loose inside a distributor. The other one was on a Roush-modified engine and was far more expensive to repair. As they say, 'there's no horsepower gain from an ignition but there are certainly losses'!