larrymopar

I bought a 2001 tracker to pull behind my motor home. Being a 30+ year mechanic. I am at wits end.... bought it with the timing chain out. Pulled the head, replaced all valves and a new timing set. Ran great for 300 miles, then the upper chain started making noise. Pulled the valve cover and found the upper chain guide was broken. Replaced the upper guide. Ran fine for a few miles and the upper chain started making noise again.....pulled the front cover and replaced again all timing components, just to be safe......Ran fine for a few minutes, then the upper chain started making noise again. Sounds like it is ready to break the cover. What is going on....... I was meticulous about chain timing.....any ideas???

larrymopar

After having repeated timing chain failures. I noticed some timing kits show a right chain guide listed. The kits I have used do not have the right guide. I wonder if the missing right chain guide is the reason I have had repeated upper guide breakage and upper chain noise?. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.

TJ New Tampa

Hi Larry, I have the exact same situation as you described... ran perfect for almost 300 miles... then lots of noise... and finally the upper guide broke again. I took over 200 photos of the R/R timing chain set. I changed the oil four times in the first 160 miles as it keep getting very dirty. I even tried a heavier oil 10W-40... did not solve the problem of what appears to be, (Not enough oil pressure to the upper TC Tensioner). The vehicle has 182K miles on it at this time. It is in very good condition. It is to my understanding thru research on the internet that the TC Set should be changed every 140K-160K miles. As for the Lower Right Chain Guide... not sure why that would be missing... it is important. One piece I found missing on my setup when I did the R/R... for upper TC Guide breakage, the Upper Chain Tensioner was missing the metal gasket. This gasket is metal for a reason, and has a very small hole in it to regulate oil pressure inside the reservoir of the tensioner. Someone had used gray RTV... the vehicle managed to run for three years like this, after the shop changed the head for overheating. Why they left it out... I do not know. Let me know if this helps and if you were able to resolve the issue.


TJ in New Tampa