As you may have read in another post I am rebuilding the timing on my 5.0 M117. It appears that the timing had already been rebuilt earlier, judging by the rails which are still smooth (which I will change anyway due to age).

The tensioner looks newer compared to the rest of the engine and the seal also looks quite recent. The timing was not noisy before I took the engine out of the car. I am therefore tempted to keep it, and change it later if it goes bad. But as it is now out of the engine, I wonder if there is a way to test how good it is?

Thanks!