Question: Does anyone know if its a must to lock my cam in place and suspend the chain so that i can remove the chain guides ?


I dont see why i should need to and i cant seem to find anyone just replacing the guides.

Ive been cobbling together different forum posts, videos (Mod mini and Project mini) whilst looking at diagrams in the bentley manual to try and get my head around the order of everything.
My understanding is that i should be be able to take the guides out and put the new ones in with just the valve cover and timing chain cover removed (Which i now know how to do and have access to)
I may need to replace the chain and sproket but i will decide whether to do that once ive had a good look at the current chain (Which if unworn/ not affected by the broken guides should be a lifetime item ; my car has just hit 80,000 miles)

Am i missing something here ?

Im not worried about ' Whilst you're in there jobs' because of ' good access' at the moment; im more than happy to strip it all back again if something else needs replacing in a months time. I just want to do what needs to be done to get it back on the road so i can get to work later this week.


Thankyou for taking the time to read this 🙏❤

Im new to actually working on my car myself so i apologise if im just being an idiot.
Id love to learn more about the cars engineering which would give me a working understanding (so i may not need to ask these kinds of questions), im just under some pretty intense time pressure with this project and getting the car back to health even if just for the moment is the only thing im focused on right now.

 

hard to torque the cam bolt without the locking tool, I would never attempt this without the proper tools

 

We have done it without the cam locking tool with success (but just bought the locking tool). The engines were out and we could lock the flywheel instead.

 

I've been able to loosen and re-torque the Cam bolt with only the car in a high gear and wheels on the ground. But the locking tool is quite handy.

As far as the guides themselves, there are two methods.

Both require you to pull the Guide Bolt Plugs, Chain Tensioner Bolt and Plunger, and Rocker/Valve Cover.
​​​​
1. Pull the Timing Cover, which also means pulling the Balancer/Damper, and replacing the Front Seal and Cover Gasket
2. Pull the Cam Gear, and suspend the Timing Chain

The second option is much easier and quicker. (Just mark the chain and gear together, no matter what it's orientation, and as long as you don't move the crank, or let the chain slack too much, you'll be just fine.)

 

I have the cam locking tool so i just used that despite how long it took me to get it lined up with the holes.

Ive had an absolute mare trying to get everything back inline again afer removing the chain and sproket -Luckily i marked up both the crank and the cam sprokets with the chain or i would have been freaking out- when i put the sproket back on once the guides were replaced the tension was on the other side of the chain despite all the markings lining up, with the bolt tightned i turned it over from crank bolt again and the tension moved back over to the other side of the chain whilst making that clicking noise but now the marks didnt line up anymore and i really started to freak out, this is where my lack of undersanding of the basic combustion cycle and the effect of different sproket sizes probably comes into play.

I kept turning it over and over again until eventually all the marking on the cam sproket matched up with the markings on the chain and all the markings on the crank sproket matched up with the ones on the chain and the tension was on the correct side of the chain - took me about 10-15 minutes of frustrated turning-, i was then able to put the cam locking tool in and torque the bolt to spec (I would have used the arp bolt i bought but i didnt buy a big enough Etorx to fit it , ive filed the edges on the head of the old bolt just slightly so theres no chance of me slipping it when i change it out for the arp one , i also used a butload of break cleaner before priming the bolt with oil and reinserting it ; hopefully this all sounds okay ; it torqued quite nicely and went in much smoother than how it came out.

I assume what ive done is a full rotation of the entire system (Cams , chain and sprokets) so that everything is back where it started but now the tension is on the correct side of the chain which is where it was when it started and how i understand it should be (The tension is taken up on the other side by the chain tensioner) Im not sure why it wasnt like that when i originally reinstalled the sproket ? 🤷‍♀️

I can now sleep at night but i felt like id entered some kind of a nightmare ; ive got a video of me do it and plan to take that to a horror movie film festival.

Thankyou all for your help and advice , the guides werent worn as i hoped and my oil pump gears are absolutely fine so i still have no idea what the problem is with my car (I now plan on servicing the supercharger and ispecting the water pump whilst im at it , i will also take the sump off to look for any debris and also have a look at the conrod bearings. After this im putting everything back together as im all out of ideas ; if the problem still persists i guess im taking it to a garage but will also make a nice big post if there any problem solvers in this group who are kind enough to shed some light on what ive missed)

Heres some videos of the problematic engine note if youd like to take a listen. It also chokes on startup sometimes but i dont have a video of that. : https://photos.app.goo.gl/LnQYCL1Z2uyqYZ9A6 | I dont have any error codes when running a torque pro scan and i also dont have any engine codes but im still not happy to drive it like this 😅

Thankyou again i know its alot to try and take in ; i wish i could simplify it, i couldnt do any of this without people like you who are kind enough to share their knowelge and time to try and help me . Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou 🙌❤