Now im putting the pieces together , why your having a hard time ,chain dosent pin at 45 due to being stretched and the exhaust cam at drivers side needs to be held so it dosent spin, which is done by pinning . they make a tool to hold the crank , but ive never needed it, and the pin tool can be substituted with drill bits, I usually recommend the timing chain whenits over 6 degrees of stretch usually reached at 130k miles or more, my own 94 wagon has 220 k miles and no rattles, but I can feel the lag a t low speeds and a top end pull that dosent stop, you can try leaving it at 40 if that's the lowest number any less and sounds risky

I dont think its the stretch. I think its the fact that the cam or crank keeps moving relieving the tension. basically I pin everything at 45 spin the crank it goes to 40 before the cams start to move then the right side sometimes moves 2 degrees before the left side starts. so I am going to try to keep playing with it maybe put the crank at 50 then pin the cams and spin it if Im lucky the crank will go to 45 and then everything will start moving.

man everyday i spend 6 hours on this thing and i end up in the same exact spot. I replaced the tensioner today. Now before i could pin the cams at 38-40 after the new tensioner it went to 35. So i reset everything again and now its at 38-40 again. Then I set the crank at 50 degrees and pinned the cams again then the crank just spins to 40 before anything moves. so i set it to 55 same thing. How is this possible? I read that the car adjusts timing by up to 20 degrees. at this point should I just put it back together and see what happens or does anyone know what i am doing wrong? Let me even give you exact procedure

1. rotate crank 45,50,55 whatever
2. loosen tensioner
3. remove sprocket
4 pin cams starting on the right side and pull the chain over to the left (aka passenger)
5. reinstall sprocket
6. tighten tensioner
7. spin crank again.


I even tried doing this without loosening the tensioner at all. I dont think it made a difference

The chain tensioner is removed after crank set to 45, the exhaust sprocket removed, then intake cam passenger side removed, then intake cam drivers side removed , then exhaust cam drivers side removed , to reassemble after guides replace set to 45, insert cam no.1 into head so it can be pinned,if you cant pin it mark it , removed cam reset it so it can be pinned ie rotate a tooth forward or back, if the drivers exhaust cam gets pinned correctly you shouldn't ba able to rotate crank clockwise, then start 2nd cam and 3rd etc, and last the passenger exhaust cam sprocket meets the cam and bolts installed and then tensioner gets installed---- it sounds like your somehow letting the crank get slack , then when tightening the tensioner its pulling the slack and throwing everthing off, get some help its difficult by yourself

Ive seen them at 7 -9 degrees stretch , but by then they rattle on startup ,the drivers side has a shorter run so its never that much 2-3 degrees , but because pass side is so much longer its a lot more, putting a new chain in is not that much more work , you install a temporary link and connect new chain to old, with the cams out you just rotate the engine like feeding a machine gun , after old chain is out remove old from new and install new link, crimp it set timing your done

So basically rolling it in in just getting it around the crank? Why is there all these special tools and stuff and everyone says you need 3 people?

You can use a dremel tool to grind the links peened end so the link comes apart, then you install a temporary link with c clip to lock old chain to new, the only tool you need is a crimping tool to crimp the factory link, you can buy these
cheeper versions on e bay, I bought one for a Mercedes 642 diesel works exactly like factory tool for 1/4 the price, 2 people are preferred to hold chain and crank the motor by hand , ive done it myself many times, the hardest are 272/273 motors , because during rotation the cams on drivers side cause the chain to jerk , but the factory says that's the way to do it, you definetly can only do the 272/273 motors with 2 people

Put the car back together today. turned the key and it started right up. The chain sounds fine, but there is a loud tick coming from the back cylinder on the passenger side, and my gauge cluster won't turn on. The battery light is on so maybe just a bad ground somewhere now? oh maybe because I unbolted the motor mounts?

Swapped out the coil and the plug, tick still there. It could be that piece of the oil separator? Not sure. Anyway I also put the fan and everything else all back on, with the fan on the engine you can hardly hear the tick at all. So maybe its not that loud? Took the car for a spin and it runs great. The cluster however only works when it wants to so now I need to fix that.