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I just ruined my saab...or did I?

5K views 36 replies 8 participants last post by  euromobile900 
Hello

Yes I did have this issue. The chain I had attached but it broke and I ended up with no chain inside the engine.

The coat hanger is too thick, wire too thin... I tried magnets on a stick and all kinds of things.

What I ended up being able to do was to use a toilet auger thing (like a large metal spring) and push that on one side of the crank sprocket and get the chain that I had dangled in the other way with a wire loop on the end, then pull it up and around. However you need to be careful not to get it caught up in the upper timing chain guide which is a pain. At the store with the toilet auger, they had mislablled the price and consequently I got it for free!

With the head in place it would be more difficult, but I don't see why it would be necessarily impossible.

It would be tricky though to try and turn the engine without contacting the valves, but if you move the engine slowly a bit, then move the cams, then move the crank, cams, etc and then set everything to TDC once the chain is in place... or even use a kind of flat piece of metal to allow you to pull the chain around the sprocket without turning the crank... though actually removing the cams would be WAY easier and faster.

The engine ran fine after this, the problem was for some reason it lost oil pressure and got seized... I eventually "unstucked" the engine using a really long pipe and a breaker bar on the crank pulley, although by that time I had already installed a used engine. In retrospect I should have done that with the engine in situ (though there isn't really enough space) and seen how the engine ran, maybe it would be beat up around the crank, a little noisy maybe, but hey if it pushes the car past 100 mph and burns less than 1 quart of oil in 500 miles I'm happy...

So yeah, I recommend a 30-pack (I love America) of cheap American beer, a length of thin steel wire and a toilet auger with that spring on the end:
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If you shine a light in there can you see the end of the chain?
 
Yeah I had always used wire before and it is better... make sure you have the tie-wraps removed and no pieces in there.

The slack distribution is easy, you make it as tight as you can on the exhaust side and between the cams, since the tensioner moves on the intake side. If there is slack on the exhaust side, then when you put in the tensioner, the cams will rotate and retard the timing. You just pull the chain over one sprocket and get it taut, then put the other, you might need to rotate the cams forward or backward a tooth to get them in the right spot... you want everything lining up when the tensioner is installed.

The line on the clutch cover should meet the 0 mark on the flywheel, I think the one on the bedplate is there too, if in doubt, just lay the plastic over the clutch and see if they line up.
 
If you are only off by one tooth it should catch but it won't smash the valves at 1 tooth or even more teeth. Just lift the chain up and turn the cam around...
 
yikes :| hopefully they last...

but yeah, when you consider what happens to an engine with a blown chain, but also consider the impact when the engine is spinning at 3000 rpm with the whole inertia of the car moving 70 mph spinning the crank, it is still pretty light...
 
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