When I put my olds motor together the first time, I put gear drives in it, after a couple of months and alot of noise later I took them out. When I was removing them I noticed that the idler pins were actually wedged between the front cover and the block. upon removal of the gears, I could actually saw an indentation where the shafts were touching both the front cover and block (shiny indentations). This would explain the excessive niose I am getting throughout the motor in a telescoping matter.
Here is my question, could I or rather should I shave the pins down say 1/16-1/8 and have the pins actually float in the housed area, or do they need the "wedged" support to keep the assembly in line? I also was thinking about fastening a soft pad (front and rear) from a timing chain tensioner. But from the pic it looks like one side has a little play and the other is tight.  here is a pic, maybe it will help.
My thought was that by being wedged in there it was placing pressure on one side of the drive while allowing the other side to have play in it, and not allowing the idlers to "Idle" or float. By being wedged in position, I am thinking there is alot of extra friction/noise on the assembly simply because the pins aren't housed into a specific position, but rather forced to the lowest point in the block casting . I really am not sure , and rather than just hurt the motor I took them out until I KNOW for sure. Any input would be helpful,
thanks,
 John

I had a gear drive in my last engine, a BBC, and the gear drive was a little different than yours (didn't have the buttons on each idler). But the one gear being looser than the other, that was the same on my engine, if the engine turned the opposite direction then the other gear would be looser. That part of it is just the nature of the beast. BBC's have a cam button riding on the center of the cam's gear and the sheetmetal timing chain cover. It seems odd that the shafts that the idler gear's ride on turns with the gears, but maybe they're supposed to. The idler gears with my set-up just stayed in place with no retaining "devices". Curious, who made the gear drive for your Olds?

I liked the fact that the timing marks didn't float around at all when I timed my engine (gear drive and no advance mechanism's in the distributor).

I had so much "whine" and header noise that I couldn't hear detonation and I melted a forged piston. 

I dont remember right off hand what brand it is, I knew they would make noise quiet or noisy, so I got the quiet ones and I do have a gasket that I coat lightly with black rtv. It left a pretty good indent where the ends of the pins hit, so I am going to check into some kind of (teflon or hard rubber) to put into the ends after shaving them down. If that dont work I see how many hops I can get out of them skipping across the lake 

I dont remember right off hand what brand it is, I knew they would make noise quiet or noisy, so I got the quiet ones and I do have a gasket that I coat lightly with black rtv. It left a pretty good indent where the ends of the pins hit, so I am going to check into some kind of (teflon or hard rubber) to put into the ends after shaving them down. If that dont work I see how many hops I can get out of them skipping across the lake 

Rubber - I wouldn't do that. The rubber will wear, and you will have that in your oil. HR56 asked a good question - if the gears are not solidly mounted to the shaft then you may want that press fit to keep them in place. If it is excessively tight, just cutting to clearance may be the way to go.

BTW pete jacksons are really loud - even the quiet version. An old trick is to put a nitrous direct port nozzle right at the gear (the old style with only one opening, not the mix style fogger) and plumb it for oil. This will drench the gear in oil and keep it silent.  On bb mopar's this is done easily through the fuel pump boss - you would have to figure out how to do it on an olds.

... An old trick is to put a nitrous direct port nozzle right at the gear (the old style with only one opening, not the mix style fogger) and plumb it for oil. This will drench the gear in oil and keep it silent.  On bb mopar's this is done easily through the fuel pump boss - you would have to figure out how to do it on an olds.

What a sik idea! That should be pretty easy to do on the Olds through that thick sheet metal timing gear cover.