Oil pump drive gear and reference sensor

[benz-tech]

I’m struggling to find info on this. I’m swapping my 323i over to Motronic. I have everything sorted except for two things.
1) the oil pump drive gear that I have doesn’t have a flat bearing to sit on in the block. It seems like just spinning on cast iron will destroy everything. Realoem doesn’t show a bushing above the block, only below it for the shaft. The round bearing is in place but there is nothing for the flat surface.
2) the timing sensor. For the cylinder sensor, does the spark plug wire go through it? Or is there something that it clips onto? Also number 1 or 6? Shouldn’t matter I suppose. I have the sensor but ii can’t un twist an ignition wire to slide it through.
I appreciate the help. 323s are a rare bird and it does have the common piston rattle when cold. But my hopes are that with Motronic it might have a chance at passing smog. The worn out distributor I removed made up its own ignition timing with no rhyme or reason.

[digger]

I’m struggling to find info on this. I’m swapping my 323i over to Motronic. I have everything sorted except for two things.
1) the oil pump drive gear that I have doesn’t have a flat bearing to sit on in the block. It seems like just spinning on cast iron will destroy everything. Realoem doesn’t show a bushing above the block, only below it for the shaft. The round bearing is in place but there is nothing for the flat surface.
2) the timing sensor. For the cylinder sensor, does the spark plug wire go through it? Or is there something that it clips onto? Also number 1 or 6? Shouldn’t matter I suppose. I have the sensor but ii can’t un twist an ignition wire to slide it through.
I appreciate the help. 323s are a rare bird and it does have the common piston rattle when cold. But my hopes are that with Motronic it might have a chance at passing smog. The worn out distributor I removed made up its own ignition timing with no rhyme or reason.

1) There is no separate thrust bearing. The cast iron is spot faced and the gear just sits on there supported radially by a needle bearing pressed into the block and one needle bearing at the top pressed into in the removable cap.

2) The spark plug wires goes through it, you can buy wire sets with the sensor already installed. Or just not use it

[benz-tech]

Is the cylinder reference sensor used by the DME at all? Is it required to run? The open gap on the crank pulley will identify what cylinder 1and 6 is but I’m not sure if it’s needs to know which is which since the distributor will send the spark to the correct one. Is 1.3 full sequential or bank fire?

[digger]

It will run fine without it. It’s there to provide a slightly better batch fire of injectors