[screamingchief]

I've seen them installed wrong so many times now,it's not even funny,so ask me if it can be installed wrong,and I'll tell you most certainly yes,they can be installed incorrectly.

And IMHO,that is probably one of the single most common pontiac "mistakes" folks make with these engines,especially if they are put together by a non-pontiac person.

The eccentric has to fit around the snout of the cam to allow the cam to be completely pulled into the cam gear and set the cam endplay by setting the clearance between the cam gear and the first cam journal relative to the thrust plate.

When done correctly,the cam snout will protrude past the face of the cam gear.

When done incorrectly,the cam usually only gets pulled "flush" to the face of the cam gear.

This is checked during assembly by measuring the cam endplay after it's all assembled.

There should be .003" to .007" or so endplay @ most,so almost no endplay to speak of,and anymore than that and it was assembled incorrectly and it's back to square one.

When assembled incorrectly there is often like 1/8" to 1/4" of endplay depending largely on just how much movement the chain & distributor gear allows.

And when assembled incorrectly,it's not @ all uncommon for the cam bolt work it's way loose and eventually fall out,have seen that happen a couple times too.

Other than not torqing the balancer bolt to it's full 160 lb/ft of torque,this is a very common pontiac mistake.

So unless your 100% certain you did all that,I'd be pulling it apart to check it.

As that can affect more than just the fuel pump operation,too much endplay is'nt good for the cam & lifters either,or the timing chain.

There are numerous threads about this on this forum,so a search should pull up a bunch more info,with specifics like how far the cam snout should be pulled past the face of the cam gear & such.

I seriously doubt there is anything wrong with that Robb Mc. fuel pump.

FWIW

Bret P.