Folks, my SS is starting to have the cold startup rattle again. I have no CEL. The engine is all stock and not abused. I replaced the timing chain at 100K miles with the Cloyes kit . I now have 180K miles. I pulled the valve cover today. See the attached video of the slack in my chain. I peeked down at the plastic guides, but they all look intact. There isn't slack in the rest of the chain.

I believe the tensioner is spring-loaded. Is it helped by oil pressure? Would it take a few seconds on startup for it to remove all chain slack, while the engine builds oil pressure? Is it possible I just need to replace the tensioner? I had hoped to get to 200K before doing the whole chain kit.

 

If the chain appears tight, change just the tensioner, be sure to activate it properly, valve cover off , push on the tensioner to engage it.

did you install a replacement bolt for the front guide upper mounting bolt? That guide is known for failure.

 

I can't open the file.

 

I opened the file. There is a good bit of slack in the chain.

 

Link won’t open. If there’s slack in the chain, replace it!

 

Is the tensioner hydraulically-assisted with oil pressure?

Sounds like the whole shebang should be replaced. This is disheartening that I couldn't even get 100K miles out of my chain. I was hoping I could just replace the tensioner and nurse it along for another 20K. I guess that's not a good idea though. Crud!

 

Since you folks can't seem to open that file, here's some screen grabs that you may be able to see the slack.

 

Thank you FMG , yep that’s slack ! Time for a new timing chain! Double check the front guide!


It appears to be as much as this slack in the chain, this one was less then a year old .

 

Is the tensioner hydraulically assisted?

 

Yes it is, but that much slack indicates a stretched chain, now you can just replace the tensioner, or remove it reset it and put it back into the engine, activate it and see if that was the problem, you can do that with the valve cover off.