Timing chain gear (i cant belive my car still drove) Pics

I

Inneedofabuick

Member
Ya my gears were completley shot as well, chunks missing. The thing was it ran fine (a little slower but didnt realize). It started having issues when I changed the head gaskets and valve springs. It would skip a beat or two on boosting, and the check engine would flash going around corners. It was weird.

You'll see a big difference now.
 
phht!

That looks better than mine did at 175k. :biggrin:
Actually the death blow on mine was the tensioner pad came off - found it in the pan. I cranked the car one morning and all i heard was ZIPPPP!

I agree with ELVIS, the car became a different animal with the new set.
 
Matt,

If you didn't have the metal shavings, I would say change the chain and keep going. Ours just shut off at 140K and I found a similiar looking gear...only minus 7 of the 8 teeth you still had. We had that strange sounding tick as well. I changed it out and kept right on going. No more tick, 190K now and still going. I am starting to collect the parts for the 200K rebuild. Hopefully it'll hold together until then. I guess we were lucky.

IMO you should put an all metal in the rebuild if you are not planning that already. The plastic gear is rediculous! What the he!! was that GM engineer thinking. I hope I meet him someday...to slap him.
 
Got you all beat! My mom's 86 buick century that we bought new in 86, was running pretty bad about 8 years ago. Took the timing cover off and the gear had 3 teeth left! 3!
It was actually running like this and I cant understand how for the life of me. :eek:
 
I should pull out my old timing set that came out at 135,000 and take some pix. Still looked almost new, only slight discoloration.
 
You all have me worried now, so i will go pull mine apart. I have the original valve springs and t chain with 211k miles. I will post a pic.
 
Well there was what looked like bearing material in the oil so thats why we went ahead and pulled the motor. Could the metal shavings from the chain be what caused the bearing(s)to fail? Iam still waiting for the machine shop to tell me the full extent of the damage.

Thanks
Matt
 
Yeah Ive had this sound of impending doom coming from the front of my motor, and I havent been able to locate exactly where its coming from. Its a rattling sheetmetal sound and I have the feeling its the timing chain/gears cause I have WOT popping and a crappy idle as well as the car falling on its face at 5000rpm. There is no loose sheetmetal flopping around. The heads have newish springs so I doubt thats it. It looks like ALOT of work to get that timing cover off. When its a daily driver and you only have the weekend to fix something, its pretty intimidating.
I have a question about the pan- Can the pan be pulled without jacking the motor up or does it pop off pretty easily? Ive got a pretty serious oil leak coming from the pan/timing cover area. Might as well hit this up at the same time as the timing cover. Oh yeah..and a rear main leak from hell. God it never ends. :mad:
 
Vader - Sounds like your chain is slapping on the cover. There isn't a lot of room inside there. You may be running on borrowed time (no pun intended). I thought we were loosing a rod bearing.

I did all my timing work in with the motor in the car. It did take about a month of Sunday afternoons, but I took my time. I removed my pan without trouble, just had to manuver it a little and it came right out. Get the intercooler and radiator out of the way and it's much easier. Good opportunity to have any radiator work done. If memory serves, you have to remove the power steering pump pulley, but not the pump. It's really not that bad of a job. But definetly pull the pan and clean it and the oil pickup. What teeth aren't on the gear are in the bottom of the pan. Our rear main leaks too, but not very badly. With that many miles, I figured to leave well enough alone.

Matt - How do you know the bearings failed? Did I miss something in your discussion? Flying timing components should be stopped by the filter and pickup screen.
 
A used timing chain? :eek:

Not for me. If I were to go through that kind of work...new parts are going in. Period.
 
zeus87gn said:
Vader - Sounds like your chain is slapping on the cover. There isn't a lot of room inside there. You may be running on borrowed time (no pun intended). I thought we were loosing a rod bearing.

I did all my timing work in with the motor in the car. It did take about a month of Sunday afternoons, but I took my time. I removed my pan without trouble, just had to manuver it a little and it came right out. Get the intercooler and radiator out of the way and it's much easier. Good opportunity to have any radiator work done. If memory serves, you have to remove the power steering pump pulley, but not the pump. It's really not that bad of a job. But definetly pull the pan and clean it and the oil pickup. What teeth aren't on the gear are in the bottom of the pan. Our rear main leaks too, but not very badly. With that many miles, I figured to leave well enough alone.

Matt - How do you know the bearings failed? Did I miss something in your discussion? Flying timing components should be stopped by the filter and pickup screen.
Click to expand...

I didn't remove the power steering pump pulley or the radiator.
 
scottyb said:
I didn't remove the power steering pump pulley or the radiator.
Click to expand...

Well the radiator was 2-fold...it needed repair anyway, and I only had access to an electric impact wrench at the time. It was large and would not have fit in there without removing the radiator. I have an air impact now (duh).

Honestly can remember why I did the p/s pully, I just remember taking it out.
 
zeus87gn said:
Well the radiator was 2-fold...it needed repair anyway, and I only had access to an electric impact wrench at the time. It was large and would not have fit in there without removing the radiator. I have an air impact now (duh).

Honestly can remember why I did the p/s pully, I just remember taking it out.
Click to expand...

I think I'd leave the radiator in for protection. Being as clumbsy as I am, if something should go flying I'd rather mack up the radiator instead of the AC condensor. :wink:
 
If that chain is from that low of mileage engine, then someone's been really beating on it, or the springs are alot stronger then necessary, IMO.

I'd say put it all down.
Check all the bearings, and ring gaps, and honestly evaluate what you have.

Nothing worse then going that far, and then months later being bit by not doing it 100%.
 
bruce said:
If that chain is from that low of mileage engine, then someone's been really beating on it, or the springs are alot stronger then necessary, IMO.

I'd say put it all down.
Check all the bearings, and ring gaps, and honestly evaluate what you have.

Nothing worse then going that far, and then months later being bit by not doing it 100%.
Click to expand...


130k is a low mileage motor? It also still has the weak ass stock springs haha. I don't know if theres much correlation in how hard its being beat on and how the gears look. When i pulled apart my dads 86 Gn with 152,000 i figured it would look like that but low and behold it was perfect. The previous owner before would let his son drive the car and he beat the crap out of it and i know i beat the crap out of it (properly tuned of course) Matts motor is getting a torn down and rebuilt though. About the bearing material in his pan, im not so sure thats what it was. I can understand why people told him it was, as it was gold flakes everywhere, but i believe they were part of the chain and once it was in fresh oil it turned to a goldish color. I checked all the rod bearings and and they and the crank looked great still. I didn't get the main caps off but im hoping for the best. Let me know what the machine shop says Matt.
 
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