About a year ago, my 351W stopped running. I ended up pulling the distributor and found that the gear pin had sheared. I also found that the shaft was extremely hard to turn. I disassembled the distributor and found that the oil grooves on the shaft were gummed up and the shaft was nearly siezed in the bushing. I cleaned out the grooves, used emry cloth to clean up the shaft and reinstalled everything.

Yesterday I had to pull the distributor to install a new Intake Manifold, and noticed that the Distributor was not moving freely. I disassembled it and found the same problem.

This is a completely rebuilt motor with lots of performance parts (about 12,000 miles now) and I use Valvoline 10W30 motor oil. There is no evidence of any gumming in the lifter valley or under the valve covers. These areas look extremely clean.

Has anybody seen the is type of problem before?