Car seemed to be running hot... suddenly temperature climbed, went into reduced power mode, hold off on the shoulder and as soon as I stop the car and put it in park it died. Only had to add about a half a gallon of fluid to bring it up to level. Had the car code and wouldn't start up at home after cool down. Replaced water pump, thermostat, temperature sensor, I went ahead and did timing chain VVT cams and actuator solenoids, balancer shaft chain, all of the guides and tensioners Etc... During teardown I found the tensioner for the balance shaft chain had collapsed and was not working. Assuming chain went full Slack that it kept skipping gears on the water pump and cause vehicle to overheat. After replacing all of the above mentioned vehicle misfires and will not start. Is there a hard codes or something that would not reset with just unplugging the battery during the repairs?

 

No.
What does mean?

 

in other words in other words, engine turns over fires on like one cylinder maybe but does not actually start up

 

What were the original codes?
Have you gone back through ALL of the wires under the hood?
Have you checked the compression?
Have you checked fuel pressure?
Have you checked all of the fuses in both fuse boxes.
Spark plugs?
Are there codes now?

 

Possibly you have the timing out by 180 degrees! Ensure the #1 piston is at TDC in the compression stroke, then reset the timing and balance shaft chains , it happens!

 

Head gasket gone... coolant in cylinders... not so happy faced today... $525 in parts to solve one problem and prevent others as vehicle has about 120k miles on it since engine swap... very disillusioned with Chevrolet at this point... disabled,fixed income, and no way I can do this repair outside in the yard...

 

Was it Chevrolet that diagnosed and told you all those parts needed replacing? 120k miles on engine, was it brand new?

 

Why blame GM for a problem with your 11 year old HHR SS , did you change coolant every 5 years? Did you have a GM dealership perform the timing/balance shaft chain replacement? Did they perform a compression test and a leak down test?
I’m thinking it’s the shop that changed the timing chain that missed the symptoms of a failed head gasket.

 

Sounds like it didn't go to a shop.

 

A head gasket isn’t a hard job, and it allows you the opportunity to clean the intake valves.
Use new head bolts or upgrade to ARP stud kit!