ok last night me and a buddy decided to remove my timing chain guides since it almost summer and i needed to remove them anyways... so we take off the valve cover..instant heart attack...no guide..just the base of it bolted down to the head...ok so we get the flashlights and start looking..nothing..so i remove the front housing and take off the second guide and continue my search for the first one...nothing..cant find any peices or anyhting anywhere..so i check the tension (had to take it off and unfreeze it, got it working properly). so we spend 30ish miniutes looking for the top guide which we cant find anywhere cant find peices or anything.. so i think maybe the previous owner herd a weird noise took it to a mechanic and they poped off the valve cover and saw it laying there so they picked it up and trashed it without removing the base part of it..so i reassemble everything and it still makes the noise...what should i do now???? im scared to drive it now.. is my only option to pull the motor???

this totally pissed me off ...any suggestions?

 

Maybe your timing is off but I'd make sure there's nothing wrong with the chain. Does it sound like metal hitting? I had a similar incident with my protege, piece of metal in the waterpump and the whole thing f'd up my car. I sold it and got a 240. Is it worse than before?

 

no but i could not remove the guide cuz i could not find it anywhere...have u ever seen on of these guides there not small and it can cause aalot of damage to ur motor if u dont get it out..i didnt run it that long since the rtv sealant wasnt dry./. just enough to hear the noise was still therre

 

the guide most likely made it into your oil pan... or what ever was left of it... you said you had to unstick your tensioner... that is a bad sign... when mine got stuck it allowed my timing chain to jump a few teeth and bend valves... what i would suggest is that you get to an auto parts store and buy a new one... the upper tensioner was 56 buck as oreillys auto parts store... the lower one was 23 buck... if the upper one was stuck replace it... and save money to do a timing chain soon... when you do the timing chain replace the lower one as well... then go from there as far as the noise goes...

 

well about the tensioiner, it was on the car and i was told to take a screwdriver and push the tgab thing to the left it wouldnt move. so i took it off and compressed it by hand and all thjis oild came out so im thinking maybe still had the oil pressure holding it out and thats y i couldnt compress it on the car...

 

I'm working on mine right now, I took both guides out, they weren't broken but it had marks of the timing chain hitting it (both of them!) I had the same thing with my tensioner, it is because of the oil/suction that it gets stuck, it doesn't get stuck when it sucks oil to the chain, I worked that biatch, now it moves freely (a little resistance from the spring of course). One problem though, did anyone check the tensioner itself if there was any contact from the other chain behind the timing chain, mine looked like it was getting scraped, anyone else?

 

i did not check that beacause that wouldnt be a tensioner problem ..you probably have a stretch timing chain (normal thing on higher milaged cars).. i would recogment u replace it soon..how many miles are on your motor?

 

Yeah, it has 130,000. It seems a little loose on the right, is that normal? It looks like someone worked on it not to long ago before I bought it, the gasket looks new, so does the rtv sealant. I started a new thread on my problem maybe someone here can help out, the tensioner on mine was scraped from the chain behind it, the chain in the back is good, but I don't want it to keep hitting and the pins on the chain get scraped off and then the chain will break. You think I should grind out the side of the tension so it doesn't make contact? I need some suggestions.

 

the tensioners work on oil pressure from the motor... the oil goes into the little hole in the back of the tensioner... and pushes the tensioner out against teh chain... that is why there is oil in the tensioner... the upper one will have grooves in it where the chain rides... as long as they are not too deep then it should be safe... if they are more than the little dips in the chain deep i would replace them... it should take some of the slack out of the chain...

 

Yeah, I figured that out when I squeezed the b!+ch and the oil squirted on my face!

 

I'm using 2 threads to try to solve my problem, hopeing i could get one more problem or question out of the way. Do you seal the tensioner area? I didn't see any rtv on it? I figured since it's inside the valve cover and it shoots out oil it doesn't need it, can somebody help?

 

if ur talking about the front cover (where u pulled the disty out from) then yes u have to rtv it all..1/4" bead all the way round it just like the valve cover.. hope u figure something out..my top chain guid is sitting in my lower cover i think..cuz i still here the chain hittin something and i think its it..can i remove the lower cover or do u have to romve the oilpan..(which means motors got to be pulled right)

 

You could, but check if the chain behind the timing chain isn't hitting your tensioner like mine. How about the tensioner, do you rtv that too? Icouldn't tell on mine, didn't look like it though.

 

no i just bolted it back on..no need for rtv

also u should note.that when i removed the valve cover there was no upper chain guide..(only the base was bolted down) so it broke off..and i dont know where it is...thats why i think its sitting in the lower timing cover

 

Try using a heavy duty magnet, see if you get somethin'. It would suck to take the whole thing out for just a piece of metal.