BMW 326rb build thread...

[ctnewman]

Originally Posted by Def

I guarantee you the temperature the crank/oil gears run at doesn't reduce their strength any measurable amount. If you're shearing things off a rotating assembly after some period of time, it is 99.999999% of the time a vibrations problem. The load of spinning the oil pump isn't that much, the load of an assembly vibrating around against another piece can spike quite high and cause fretting and eventually fatigue failure.

I disagree. Loading the drive gear off-center AND partially is a huge stress riser.

Inline 6 cylinders are very well balanced.