Kip,

Thank you for your info. It helps.

I am starting to rethink how i will deal with my timing system. I think it is a bit hasty to change everything (rails, tensioner and chain) because they have 100K miles on them and I'm starting to hear a bit of chatter on start up. Maybe just the tensioner is bad and is not holding enough pressure before normal oil pressure takes over. Maybe some of the upper rails are worn. From what i have read and heard the double row chains fail when a piece of rail gets caught in it. The chain will stretch from wear and tear but that can be measured and evaluated for out of spec condition.

I will proceed by taking the 2 valve covers off and inspecting the rails. Regardless i'll change the rails and probably the tensioner. Once done i'll measure the chain stretch to see if the chain is really out of spec (I'll also do this before changing the rails and tensioner). I'd like to avoid changing the chain unless necessary (the idea of spending more $ on a new chain, grinding off the old chain, feeding a new one in by myself makes me a bit nervous). The manual also suggests using offset keys on the sprockets to correct for stretch. Anyone have experience with this? I would think that would be very easy to do compared to changing the chain. Some people would say why bother, just change the chain. With that philosophy why not also change all the sprockets as well.

Does my plan make sense?

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1972 450SL
1982 300D Turbo