Has any 450sl owner had a timing chain break?

I lost my chain while trying to start up!

Werid huh.

If you had this same proble what did it cost to fix I have had a estimate of $2300 for valve job and timing etc

What a drag, sorry to hear. What year is your SL? How many miles? Any warning signs before it happened, noise at start up, etc? How was the car maintained?


sbr
'79 450SL
76,000 miles

[snackus]

I recently bought a 79 450SL with 69K on it. My mechanic said that the timing chain and heads had been replaced, in his opinion due to a timing chain break. Weird - such low mileage. His estimate would be between 3-4K to fix. Glad it didn't happen after I bought it.

It's a 450 SL never been in an accident knock on wood,
100 thousand miles New trans and I had the factory fix the broken frontend 10 years after warrenty expired,

I had no warning I washed and waxed the car after i pulled the car a few feet to hose, I put it back into Garage and an hour latter bang rattle rattle. That's it, i suggest anyone with 100,000
check out the timing chain. The car never used a quart of oil
since I've owned it. no smoke ran quick.

Now I'm nervous.......

sbr
'79 450SL
76,000 miles

Componenents chains guides conector thanks to Gilly to told me. Check man I feel like dodo since it happened.

I guess the best advise can come from the biggest mistake! and I made it I didn;t know better to check my chain.

[tahodgson]

You might do a search on this forum and the Tech Help forum. There's been a lot of discussion about the fragile chain guides, chain stretch, and the cost of preventative maintenance vs. damage repair.

I have 117 on my 560 SL, and hear some rattling on start-up some times, but was told the last time the valve covers were off that everything looked OK. I don't find the one second of clatter on start-up is comforting, however, and will probably have the chain and/or guides re-done before I store the monster for the winter.

Good luck. It's a shame, in many ways, that the initial preventative work is so expensive...but, it's like an old man paying for life insurance...costly, but with these engines, from what I've read, it's inevitable.