Has anybody here replaced the timing chain themselves on their VE?? How big of a PITA was it??

 

May I ask why you are replacing the chain? Generally, it lasts the life of the engine. And yes, replacing it is a pretty big PITA. You have to remove alot of stuff to gain acess to it. I think its about 50 steps in the FSM.

 

I went through this recently, as I was under the false assumption that the chain needed replacing around 120k miles. I later discovered by asking around that this is not the case, and unless there is a very good reason to have it done (other than having a death wish for your bank account), the general consensus was: "leave it alone!"

Are you experiencing any problems?

 

You mean timing chain(S)?
You can probably figure out the PITA factor:

 

I found that replacing the timing chains (there are three of them) require more hours than replacing the engine.

If you call a shop, the book on this job is something like 18 hours, which is over $1k just in labor at the normal shop rates of $60-$70 per hour.

I was faced with this and I opted for a JDM engine. Jeff would know all about this, too.

 

thanks for the insight everybody. and yeah i did know that there are three of them. the reason i am asking is because i just bought an se that needs engine work (which i was aware of) and am under the impression by the previous owner that the chains may be bad. im gonna take a good look at everything tomorrow when i finally get a chance to spend some time on the car, to see whats really goin on. but if its the chains then i might look into jdm to save myself the hassle.

 

Its probably the VTC sprokets that need to be rebuilt. If you do the job, I'd reccomend replacing the upper timming chain tensioners while your at it.

 

If you think you are up to the job, but a little low on money, I have all three chains in good condition, as well as chain covers and a lot of other stuff you might need and I will sell them cheap. I think I would buy new tensioners (I have those, too if you really want them).

Shoot me a PM if you are interested.

chris

 

well, I took off the valve cover for cylinders 2,4, and 6 and the chain was okay under there. i tried turnin the engine by hand and it only goes so far be fore it stops dead and wont move at all. so i took off the upper intake manifold and tomorrow im gonna take off the other valve cover to see whats goin on in there.

Oh yeah and ill let you know about the Timing chain and whatnot Red92, thanks everybody.

 

Its almost 20 hours book time to do all the timing chains.....

 

yeah i looked on all-data and saw that it was a 20 hour or so job. so good luck to me haha