Hi. I am replacing the timing gears on my 1986 E150 4.9L engine. The camshaft gear is made of a plastic composite and several teeth broke. The smaller camshaft gear is steel and has no threaded holes to pull it and almost no clearance behind it to grab it with a puller. Is it necessary to replace the steel gear? The motor has been rebuilt, new timing gears were installed and has only 38,000 miles.
Thanks

 

I looked in my FSM and it is stated to use gear puller "T58P-6316-D". Maybe a Ford dealer might have one. The picture shows the puller but it ddn't make sense since there are no holes in the crank gear to thread anything into it.. You could try a pair of screw drivers behind the gear, against the block and try pulling it off.
You could leave the old gear alone but there's a reason why the teeth broke off the cam gear in only 38k miles on it. I would make every attempt to change the two gears together. Even the nylon toothed cam gear should last way beyond 100k miles.
The original gears could have been reused during rebuild since most replacement cam gears are all metal.

 

Could it be another first time "post and hide"?