Camshaft timing, guiderails.

[nhdoc]

Good news! Let us know how your maiden voyage goes.

[milterino]

Hello again. The car seems to be running allright, no apparent damage from jamming piston and cam. The bad news is that the clatter up front continues. I can hear it in the car but when I get out with stethoscope to try and find it, can't find nothing. Poked all over, motor, accessories, tranny, just the usual humming.
Let me pass on some of my experience of late for other unlearnededs. When trying to take off the thermostat to see if it works (it does) I took off the top of the water pump. Didn't even have to do this but in the process broke 1 of the 3 bolts off. Had to drill it out and retap it. When fooling around with a 30 year old car put penetrating oil on days early and often, just nudge the bolts, oil, nudge ect. Especially where there has been water in the area to encourage corrosion. At one point I was nudging the warm up compensator bolt 1/8 turn at a time, retighten, nudge some, oil, wait for heat to dissipate etc. Luckily got it out. To get the thermostat out take off the side cover and use a very small screwdriver, push into the soft seal and pry out. When taking the sprocket off I ended up punching and scratching the sprocket and looped thin coil wire thru the link of interest for identification. I finally found the easiest way to get the sprocket back on was to use the sprocket bolt minus a washer and gently bolt untill the key was started.
Of general interest, the sprocket takes about 5 1/2 revolutions to thread a chain about 72" thru.
Extracting guide pins. I made a tool something like that described in Haynes. This was good for the 2 r.h. guide pins but did nothing to the l.h. guide pins. I had to add a small lathe chuck to the tool and this just did supply enough weight to break l.h. side loose. Precautions, protect your radiator with some plywood and protect and don't get your fingers mashed. Establish beforehand where your distributor body and rotor line up a T.D.C. Loosen the pulley bolts before you take off steering pump and put a couple back on during your subsequent meanderings. So long for now. Milt.

[nhdoc]

It doesn't look like you replaced the tensioner and tensioner rail...if not a bad tensioner could cause the chain to rattle...

[milterino]

Marty, I am going to do that next. I have the slipon plastic piece that slips on the tensioner rail ordered. Have you any thoughts on how to diagnose a bad tensioner? While on this subject I shall mention something which may be of value to others. I took off the tensioner on my donor. It became quite a chore. Feeding out of the tensioner is a thin metal pipe which goes down to the air pump. This pipe is held onto the outlet fitting with a coupling nut which after 30 years freezes to the pipe. I broke the pipe when I tried to unscrew the the coupling nut. Best way, take the apropriate size allen wrench, grind the short end off so lit will fit under the exhaust pipe and take the tensioner off and then work on the coupling on the bench where it is convenient. Milt.