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Hi Vic,
I have to agree with Anders that the last thing you'd want is continued shrapnel circulating through your engine. Putting it all back together and calling it good won't fix that. As Anders notes, the balance sprockets are a likely source of the metal shavings, but there's no way to know without opening things up - unless you have a boroscope or something like that (there are some cheap-o ones available on eBay for ~$40 that are small enough to fit most places in the engine).
You can, actually, remove the timing cover with the engine in sitiu. I would recommend changing the head gasket at the same time, as this makes it much easier to pull the timing cover since you don't have to try and preserve the existing head gasket.
If you have a weeping HG already, this might make sense. With the head off, if you so choose, you might even be able to leave the timing cover on and cut the balance chain from above. Still, I would recommend removing the cover if at all possible. This would let you examine the state of the timing chain guides at the same time.
I know it looks daunting, but if you have another vehicle to drive for a bit, it can be done DIY. My '94 Aero had a really noisy chain at 175k. It wasn't quite to the point of sounding like a tin can full of spoons rolling down the stairs (mother-in-law's Saturn sounded like that), but it was not normal for a Saab. I pulled the timing tensioner and found that it was fully extended. That convinced me to go ahead and do the chains. The cost in parts was perhaps $350 for the timing and gasket kits (I replaced other stuff while I was in there, which I don't count in that figure). Owing to a small garage and no room for a crane, I did the repairs in the car, and it took me about 6 weeks, including time spent waiting for parts to arrive. Total number of hours working (on just the HG / timing part) is probably close to 15, but I took things very slow and carefully, and spent what is probably an OCD level amount of time cleaning things in the engine bay.
The car runs perfectly smooth now.
posted by 71.36.88...
, Tue, 12 Nov 2013 15:53:01, Wed, 13 Nov 2013 07:46:34, Wed, 13 Nov 2013 09:10:09
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