Hi Tom.

Don't dispaire.

My story is very simular.

I desided to change the T-chain(after 368K
and not knowing the maintenance of the
car after 120K it seemed a good idea).
So one day me and my wife got down
to it(but naturaly I didn't remove the
GP's of Injectors,big mistake),so I ground
the pins on one of the links down removed
the link and adhered the new chain.
Went to run the chain thru and the chain
jumped 2 maybe 3 teeth.
Now would only turn maybe 1/4 turn and
lock up.
(Got realy pissed at myself at this point)
So thinking that the chain was bunched up
I removed the lower oilpan but I couldn't see
anything since the chain for the oilpump was
in the way.
Now since that was a dead end I figured that
if I can remove chain tensioner and tensioner guide
rail I would get some slack and I should be OK,NOT.
So since that didn't do the trick I desided to remove
the injection timing wheel,but the top part of the
lower guide rail is in the way it is hard to remove
the chain from the timing wheel.
So I took the T-wheel apart,this gave lotsa slack
but no go on turning the crank.
Now I figured that the chain for the oilpump was
pinching the T-chain so I removed the oilpump
somehow without removing the upper oilpan.
Now I noticed at the T-chain is free and not bunched
up so I took all that stuff off and appart for no reason.
But still the crank would only turn about 1/4 of a turn.

So finally I realized that one of the pistons is hitting
the valve and that is why it will not turn.
So I removed the cam and cam tower and VOILA
the crank and T-chain turns freely.

So after about 3 months of thinking,cursing and just
being pissed off I get to turn the new chain thru and
finally put everything back together again.
Now I come to the T-wheel and find out that the
woodruff key(about the size of a cut off nail,small)
is missing eventough I made sure that I knew where it
was and it wouldn't get lost,well guess again,I can't
find it.
By now the summer is over(I live in N. NJ) and the
weather is slowly getting worse(lotsa rain,wind,cold
and lastly snow the first 2 weeks of December).

Now I'm contemplating wether I should try to get the
T-wheel and woodruff key back in and just set the
timing on cam,crank and IP and be done with it.
OR remove the IP,then mount the T-wheel,set
cam and crank,then remount the IP,set IP timing
and then be done with it.
I have a few months to think about that.

Well live and learn,next time it will go alot
quicker because I'm a little bit smarter but not
Mensa material yet.

So now the car has been sitting there since February and
I haven't had the pleasure to drive it(lotsa other things
wrong that needed fixing).
I do have to say that I bought it on Ebay for $800
some of the things that were wrong were easy fixes.

I hope this will give you some hope,just know your
not alone and we all go thru something that has us
plucking our hair.

Car is a 83 300TDT

Louis.