What is the functional difference?

Cam Timing mark is 180 degrees out from the 66 thru 68 cam gears.

Glad to help, I made the same mistake many years ago when I just grabbed the best looking timing gear I had, and it happened to be a 1969 gear. I was lazy and just rotated the distributor shaft 180 degrees and ran it that way for years.

Glad it was that easy to correct!

Wonder why the changed it in 69?

Probably because PMD changed the cast timing cover behind the cam gear to a stamped steel one. (All the covers and hardware changed) They did some cost down activity on the 69 engine compared to the others.

From what I understand Pontiac was fighting to keep the OHC-6 in production and even with all the cost cutting they did for the 69 model year, it still cost Pontiac about $35.00 more to make than what Chevy would sell their OHV 6. And Chevy could make a profit selling it to Pontiac at that price.
Then when the 2nd gen F-Bodies came out, the upper timing cover would not fit under the hood without a bulge. Funny when the redesigned front end came out for 77-81. It fits just fine under the taller hood on the later cars.

IT'S BEEN FUN!
 

I have reached my goal and am glad I could finally put all these 1966 parts I've been collecting into a complete engine.
Never having a plan and still don't it's just been a fun crawl and now I will think about the next step.

Until then hope you all enjoyed my little adventure.
Cheers.

Click on the image for the link to video;
https://live.staticflickr.com/31337/...625c561b_b.jpgIMG_4858 by J. Hamlin, on Flickr

NEXT!... :D

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...ba743a28_k.jpg

Great job Jeff , Thanks for the tutorial . It would sure look good under my hood . Don

Thanks, Don, It's been an experience, to say the least.
Looking back to when I started I was taken aback by all that had transpired during this build.
I guess in many ways it was good therapy to keep me sain if that's possible ;)

I wanted to attempt to record and share this with all my Fellow Cammers who might consider taking a stab at building one for themselves
or at least have a little better understanding of these engines. My attempt was to keep it straight and simple and not omit any of my mistakes.

Cheers!

Another Piece of the Puzzle...
 

Finally came up with a correct starter to add to my build.
Dropped it off at my rebuilders shop, an hour and $65 later...

I was resealing the accessory housing on my 1967 LeMans that has a 1966 Sprint engine and I noticed my cam timing gear had the indicator mark at the bottom when crank was at TDC. Also the gear has 3 holes in it. Does that mean a previous owner used a 1969 Cam gear on it?

Turn the crank one complete turn in either direction and check the cam timing gear indicator again.

Jeff do you know what the P/N for the upper radiator hose you used on this stand? It looks like it would work for a Firebird.

In an attempt to emulate a few NOS that I have, I ended up using a few hoses from the local car quest.
They allowed me to go in back and just go through all the hoses.

I found a few longer hoses that matched the contours I was after and
made work by cutting a few inches off each end. The 3rd and 4th images are my '66.

The one just used to run my build wasn't cut due to my stand being a bit high.

You can see the tag numbers just not sure if they can be cross-referenced to help you find something local,
unless you have a Car Quest nearby.

Thanks Jeff, I used to be able to go back and do the same at our local auto parts store, but after the owner sold the store the new owner would not allow it. Heck that was probably 20 years ago.
It looks like that P/N is the same as a Gates 204 16 so I will try that one. The 2 that were suggested to me will not work.

Jeff, what type of refacing was done to the rockers? Can any competent machine shop do it? I think Jay Leno had given his a diamond like coating, but I'm not sure what that is

I had an accumulation of rockers and picked out what I felt were the better of the batch and sent 2 sets out to Rockers Arms Unlimited.
They inspect them and if all is good resurface them. I asked them about hardening and they said they have done many of these and never needed to do so.
About 120$ a set.

The $2300.00 set that Pinks made for Leno was IMHO money not well spent.

http://rockerarms.com/index.html

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...75606154_c.jpg

more cam followers
 

The last batch of NOS cam followers (not rocker arms) made
were ground with tired equipment.
The follower surface must be dressed up.
Im not sure hardening the followers is a good idea if the cam isnt also upgraded to be harder. Idea is the followers are sacrificial as compared to the cam.
When I redress mine I parkerize. I have some PowerKote CCL that I may try.
I have about a 5 gallon bucket full of lash adjusters and followers so dont panic
Tell me more about the $2300 set.Roller?