alright, heres the issue. after takin the head off the car im retiming the car to make sure its in good working order. well when i got the timing marks all lined up and the chain on, the damn thing jumps when i cranked the engine by hand. according to the chilton manual it says my tensioner is good. the chain only has 4-5k miles on it so it couldnt possibly be bad. the tensioner im not sure about, it was fine when i took the head off. i currently have it lined up again i just havent cranked the engine yet. any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

 

Is it possible one of the teeth on the gears got bent somehow? Even just a little could throw the chain. Use a straightedge to make sure both gears line up perfectly, you know in case one got tweaked. Anyways good luck.

 

I have not taken it a part but is the timing chain tensioner oil driven. If so when you crank the engine over, the proper amount of tension is not applied to chain causing slack in the chain, which then results in the chain skipping teeth on the cam gears.

 

thats what me and my friend are talkin about right now. but yea, its oil pressurized. we was just thinkin about takin out the tensioner and puttin out in it and seein if that works

naw the teeth are all fine

 

have you ever replaced you tensioner to the new style or do you still have the original in it
that just might be the problem

 

theres a new style? i was using the same tensioner that came with the car

 

when doing a timing chain, is the chain supposed to be tight when you turn the crankshaft either way? when i turn the crank backwards it kinda slacks up. but if i go forwards it has less. i know i got a shitty tensioner and got a new one on order but im just curious

 

it should slacken up a little bit but not a large amount.

 

alright, well its not like alot of slack but its enough to have concerned me. new tensioner shows up thursday so hopefully the issue is fixed

 

When you install the tensioner you have to activate it by forcing the chain shoe towards the tensioner assembly itself. That will release the internal catch and allow the spring internal to the tensioner to pre-load the chain assembly.

 

oooh, got ya. i couldnt figure out how to make it come out so i just extended it and screwed it in lol

 

she should be back up and running tomorrow. i gotta get the new bolt, my oil feed should be in, and fill it up with oil and coolant and she should be boostin again

 

alright well i still got a problem with this car. i got a new head gasket and tensioner and i retimed the car but the car still sounds like it has a little hesitation. i accidently broke a piece of my purge solenoid that is connected to the valve cover and i bored out the hole and stuck in a vacuum fitting and rtv'd it (ghetto rigged lol) but my vacuum is still low. any ideas what could be causing this? im bout fed up wit this car. nothin goes right with it

 

Define "low vacuum" and what are you compairing the reading against? With all the modifications you've made it may be normal.

 

when i say low vacuum im talkin 15-16...when normal before i took the head off was 18-19.

 

Is it idling higher than normal as well? If so it's a vaccum leak and you'll have to search for it. Since you just got done tearing the whole thing apart, It could be just about anywhere and you'll have to start elimenating things.

That vaccum fitting may still be leaking. I would check that first then if it's good, check other things like your gaskets on your intake/TB side and make sure none of them are leaking.

Usually you can spray them with something like soapy water and watch to see if it sucks it through.

 

naw, idle is normal. i talked with a mechanic friend at work and he said hes most certain sure my timing is off and that off timing can cause low vacuum cause the valves arent opening when theyre supposed to at the right time. so ima spend another 4 hours of my life retiming the car...hopefully it works

 

yea sounds like that's deffinitely your problem. Chances are when you put the chain on it was one notch off or something along those lines. Just make sure that everything still lines up once you get your chain back on and put tension to it. I'll usually spin the crank 360 once or twice and then makes sure everything is still in line before I call it a day with the chain.

 

Spinning the engine over by hand once or twice wont line up the marks. I don't know how many revs it would take to get it all lined up but the last one I put a head on I did I tried that. Ended up having to re-time it by taking the front cover off. I would recommend leaving the cover off when you time it up and set the tensioner. That way if it does jump you'll be able to see it. Also don't forget the cam bolts are torque to yield. After one tightening they are garbage so finger tight until you know you got it right.

 

lol i think im on my 6th use of my cam gear bolts

 

I'm not going to tell you to re-use them just because you're not really supposed to, but I can't remember the last time I actually replaced cam/head/crank bolts outside of professional work. Never had a problem.

 

same here, never had a problem wit them before, but head bolts, id always replace

 

well for anyone who cars i retimed the car and switched the cam gears around just for ***** and giggles, i havent put it back together yet cause i dont feel like it right now but i might tonight after work. i hope it works