This was while turning clockwise.

 

The chain should be taught between the cams, should not slap the upper guide ever.

 

OK thanks! I'm going to go with the Cloyes kit including water pump, they confirmed it's a steel impeller.

 

I’m fine with that kit! Cloyes 9-4201SWP

 

Am anxious to see what the problem was. If the timing chain is slack already, that suggests a bad timing chain tensioner, even if the front guide is broken.

I’m starting to seriously mistrust the timing chain tensioners. Would love to know how many different manufacturers there are, or if the AC Delco item wil be more reliable.

 

Parts are scheduled to be delivered Thursday, except for the Melling (sp?) bolt, that's coming Friday. It will sit in the garage until then. I'll update back what I find.

 

We’ll wait! You should take this time to detail the interior, fix anything else while you have the time!

 

Ha, I've got too many irons in the fire already, that's why it's sat this long already. Easy to do when wifey works from home.

 

So there's nothing broken, I'm not sure if the tensioner failed or if it's because the bolt on the tensioner guide had wiggled itself just slightly loose. All bolts were torqued to spec when we did this job 2 years ago, so I'm going to investigate the threads and bolt this evening. It definitely was one link off, and did slap the top guide when rotating the engine clockwise manually.

On a related note, man that water pump is fun to remove. What genius decided to stick it back there with the metal coolant heater pipe wedged in between it and the T-stat housing. Luckily this is a 5-spd so I didn't have to loosen the exhaust manifold. I was able to remove the bolts for the T-stat housing without removing the heater hoses, it remains to be seen if I can reassemble without unhooking them, although I may just replace them while I'm in there, even though they appear to be in great shape.

 

The blank rubber plug on the housing tends to weather and crack. The hoses are usually ok.
The setup makes sense in a rear wheel drive application.