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Found BALL bearing inside of timing chain case?!?!?
Hey all,
So this weekend I decided to replace my timing chain tensioner(s), chain(s), guide(s), water pump, and while in the process I saw a little ball bearing siting in the top right hand corner of the timing case.
Can anyone tell me where this little guy could have come from?
If I had to take a guess, I think he might belong to the secondary timing chain tensioner. I say that because I had to "pop" off the old guide and broke the plastic in the process and thought maybe the little ball bearing helps "seat" the tensioner piston to the guide?
I tried to reconstruct how I thought it went together.
In any case judging be the state of your timing covers, you or whoever owned the car before you didnt take it anyway, lots of sludge build up. and dont give me its an old car. i have a 4th gen with over 250K and its timing covers look factory fresh. The small ball likely came from inside of the timing chain tensioner that you broke to take the chain guide off, in any case it probably was not a job you should have decided to tackle since you do not understand how to disassemble the timing assembly yet, nothing has to be popped off or really requires much of any force outside of the crank pulley bolt.
Last edited by Crusher103; 09-05-2016 at 12:01 PM.
You are correct. This is a job I was not prepared for, but one I was willing to take on and learn from. The car is old and only worth approximately 1,500 dollars.
Last edited by Kristoefur; 09-05-2016 at 12:34 PM.
the good news it is a repairable mistake you just need to remove the inner timing chain cover and the cam brackets then replace the 2 secondary chain tensioners, replace them, clean the timing covers, i mean clean them good, no old RTV should be on them, liberally apply new rtv, seal it up and go.
the good news it is a repairable mistake you just need to remove the inner timing chain cover and the cam brackets then replace the 2 secondary chain tensioners, replace them, clean the timing covers, i mean clean them good, no old RTV should be on them, liberally apply new rtv, seal it up and go.
Do you or anyone else have advice for removing the secondary timing chain guides? Honestly, they were the hardest part of whole process.
Lastly, what is the best solution to clean the oil sludge?
You just have to struggle lol. i have done it many times now. i push the guide down as far as possible and slip the chain on usually i have the sprocket loose so i slide the whole assemble on together then check timing.
As far as sludge, just run a good synthetic oil and do oil changes every 3-5K. That will get rid of most of the sludging.
Hey all,
I have an update for you. I located the cause of the ticking noise coming from the motor on the passenger side of my car. It turns out the secondary timing chain guide failed.
Below I have a picture of the failed part. The guide on the LEFT is the bad guide (as you can see the plastic wore down to bare metal). The guide on the RIGHT is the new part.
Hope this helps someone with a similar problem.
Hey all,
I have an update for you. I located the cause of the ticking noise coming from the motor on the passenger side of my car. It turns out the secondary timing chain guide failed.
Below I have a picture of the failed part. The guide on the LEFT is the bad guide (as you can see the plastic wore down to bare metal). The guide on the RIGHT is the new part.
Hope this helps someone with a similar problem.
That's very bizarre. It's like just that one shoe was defective or somehow didn't get enough oil.
09-05-2016, 11:04 AM
