How Can You Tell If Your Timing Chain Is Worn Or Needs To Be Replaced?

Question

1972 Chevelle 350. Don't wanna give details about what my car is doing because when I do, I tend to get answers that I have already checked out. All I wanna know is this: What are the symptons of a bad/worn/stretched timing chain? And how can you tell if it is bad?

Answer 1

Your engine will obviously not run consistently well. It will be noisy due to the slack in the chain. The guide blocks will also be worn out and be very noisy, almost sounds like a diesel engine. If it get too bad, your camshaft may be delayed in preventing the valves from hitting the piston heads. By that time you are in big trouble if your pistons are colliding with your valves. Bent valves will certainly stop your engine and you will know it when that happens.

Answer 2

The gears in those GM engines cam coated with nylon to keep them quiet, when all of the nylon gets worn off, the chain becomes loose and noisy. Other than excessive noise you may hear, you will experience lack of power( a big lack) a real easy way to figure out if your timing chain is worn, is to check your ignition timing with a timing light(distributor runs off of the camshaft) If your timing is on the retarded side of things(absolutely no advance) or around 0-4 degrees advance, you most likely have a worn chain/gears(assuming the engine has not been touched in anyway) It is not that hard or expensive to replace the timing set on those chevy motors, just take the water pump off, then the timing cover, everything will be right in front of you..........

PS if you get hardcore in trying to figure it out, you can take your distributor cap off, and put a breaker bar on the crank pulley bolt and turn the engine over back and forth and take note of how many degrees you turn the crank before the distributor shaft starts to spin, there should be very little slop at the distributor......