Ok yeasterday I finally get my new alum. valve cover. Install is not too bad just a little frustrating because one hole wouldn't line up. I changed to the new on because my old one was missing the baffle at the PVC and sucking oil into the vacuum port below the carb and was creating a smoke screen. I set the idle to 600 and the timing to 12* (runs best there) and wow did she move, and minimul smoke. Drove it maybe 15 miles last night to include about a 5 mile crawl through a river, H20 was only up to the middle of the axle. Drove home and parked her. Got up for work this morning and I couldn't get it started lots of sputering and some very low rough idle withsputtering and shut down. Went to work and started playing with it tonight. I moved the dist a few degrees and she started right up, idled for a minute and then slowly died. I pulled the dist and found that the bronze dist gear had started to be eaten away by the cam (clifford 264) so I changed back to the original gear set the dist in to approx where it was and satred it. I timed it by ear and it ran great for about 2 minutes then died. I kept playing with the timing and got the same results, it would run and then shut down. I finally got it to stay running, but at 1000 rpms, then it died. A couple of times when I was trying to start it I heard some very loud clunking noises that didn't sound good. Is my 258 an interferance engine, and did I maybe bend a valve? I am thinking that the timing chain may have jumped a tooth or is very loose, causing the timing to go screwy. Does this make sense to anyone? This is my daily driver, so any help is appreciated.
Specs include a recent rebuild on the engine with a new cam, valves + springs, pushrods, tappets, HEI dist, holley 2300 carb

Thanks again
Jon

This may seem too obvious but here is what I am thinking: Your cam gear is eating up your distributor gear as it repeatedly goes out of timing. You can reset it but it will just go to shit again. I want to say that you don't have your distributor clamp on, or tight enough. If your distributor clamp was not on, the torque from the cam would twist it out of timing every time and push the distributor out of its bore, thereby kicking the gears out of mesh and ruining one of them. Again, I know this sounds to obvious, but I find it's always best to start with the simple solutions.

J. J.

what he said. I had this problem once on a 304. I had too thick of a gasket under he distib. muched the gear after a few miles!!
little things big problems. *I think I had to change the cam gear too. I think it bolted on?

same deal dude I was going insane trying to time my engine doing it remember............... K.I.S.S ( and no that is not knights in satans service):skull:

And the answer is:
Timing chain is stretched and the cam gear is all out of wack (technical term) from the dowel slipping out due to no washer btween the gear and bolt. Just thought I'd share. Thanks for the answers.
Jon:beer:

Dude . . . that sucks!

J. J.

not to be an ass but if the motor is recently rebuilt why didn't you get a new timing chain. do it right and then there are no worries.
sorry for the bad luck though