timing chain very tired

[John J]

I think we caught it just in time.

 

[71ProjectJunk]

You certainly did. I thought that my car could be an original 47,000 mile car, it has little rust on it and had part of the factory interior which was decent. I was always concerned about the timing chain being original. About a month ago I changed my harmonic balancer, and since I had all the front of the engine out, I went ahead and fixed the rust under the battery tray, replaced the battery tray and changed the fuel pump. When I did the fuel pump I was able to see the timing chain, and it was not an OEM chain, it was definitely a double roller chain. So, someone had been in there to change the timing chain. The chain had quite a bit of play on it, so it had to have been run for quite a while. Unless they changed the stock timing chain at 10K miles or something like that, that car has over 47K miles. The timing chain that is in there certainly has 10's of thousands miles on it...

 

[Fabrice]

When I bought my 73 back in 86, with 40k something, it was running real bad, really irregular idle. One of the (many) probs was the chain. Somehow Ford had installed some kind of nylon gears and the day I changed it, it broke into my hands when I tried to pull it out. It was really cooked. So I'm not surprised you found a double roller that was in there for a while. I was actually surprised how long that worn to death gear had kept it together that far. Why the previous owner continued to drive a car running that bad, likely for a long time and not fix it is a mystery to me.

 

[Stanglover]

Probably a good job you didn't (yet) drive the car to SC. Time for a new timing chain for sure and a few other things as well no doubt.
For people not sure about fuel pump eccentric location and pump arm fit, that is a good picture to show that.

 

[Hemikiller]

Good catch, that "silent" nylon cam gear has killed more Ford 260/289/302 engines than you can imagine. The nylon pieces flake off, get sucked into the pump and jam it, causing the 1/4" hex shaft to snap, but the engine continues to run without oil pressure. The rest is inevitable....

For your 351C, the Rollmaster CS3091 timing set is the bee's knees, but somewhat pricey depending upon your plans. A good alternative is the Summit roller with the multi-keyway sprocket. This will allow you to advance the cam 4° at the crank to gain back some low-end grunt that was lost when Ford ground the cam retarded starting in 1972.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-g6621r-9/make/ford

 

[71ProjectJunk]

When I bought my 73 back in 86, with 40k something, it was running real bad, really irregular idle. One of the (many) probs was the chain. Somehow Ford had installed some kind of nylon gears and the day I changed it, it broke into my hands when I tried to pull it out. It was really cooked. So I'm not surprised you found a double roller that was in there for a while. I was actually surprised how long that worn to death gear had kept it together that far. Why the previous owner continued to drive a car running that bad, likely for a long time and not fix it is a mystery to me.

I do not doubt that the owner was never able to figure out why the car was running so bad. Diagnosing an engine miss to a stretched timing chain is no easy feat. Most people will go nuts with timing and carburetion, never thinking they could have a timing chain issue.

 

[mrgmhale]

Probably a good job you didn't (yet) drive the car to SC. Time for a new timing chain for sure and a few other things as well no doubt.
For people not sure about fuel pump eccentric location and pump arm fit, that is a good picture to show that.

That is indeed a great photo to provide folks when I try to describe how it helps to rotate the engine to take pressure off the fuel pump actuating arm from the eccentric. I saved it to my photo library, and will now annotate it with some arrows pointing to the pump arm and eccentric. I am glad the photo was taken and shared, and that you mentioned how useful it could be. Until I red your post I had just skimmed past the photo, missing how useful it could be.

 

[Stanglover]

That is indeed a great photo to provide folks when I try to describe how it helps to rotate the engine to take pressure off the fuel pump actuating arm from the eccentric. I saved it to my photo library, and will now annotate it with some arrows pointing to the pump arm and eccentric. I am glad the photo was taken and shared, and that you mentioned how useful it could be. Until I red your post I had just skimmed past the photo, missing how useful it could be.

Saved as well.
Thanks to JohnJ for an unexpected bonus.

 

[John J]

I took the car in to have the water pump changed out and I was concerned about the radiator since I am moving to a warm weather state. I have owned the car for 11 years and it never had any over heating issues or touched the water pump or the rad. I changed all the hoses out and the coolant and called it a day. when I bought it. I have changed out the coolant a few times but other than that the whole cooling system and engine have not been touched other than spark plugs and a new carb.


This car spend half of it life in a heated storage building and I think that why it has not had a lot of issues and the other half In FL
Once he got it on the rack and was looking around he called my about the timing chain. I am going to have the rad replaced along with the hoses, t stat, water pump, timing chain. I plan on driving it year round since there no white stuff in SC.

 

[Stanglover]

I took the car in to have the water pump changed out and I was concerned about the radiator since I am moving to a warm weather state. I have owned the car for 11 years and it never had any over heating issues or touched the water pump or the rad. I changed all the hoses out and the coolant and called it a day. when I bought it. I have changed out the coolant a few times but other than that the whole cooling system and engine have not been touched other than spark plugs and a new carb.


This car spend half of it life in a heated storage building and I think that why it has not had a lot of issues and the other half In FL
Once he got it on the rack and was looking around he called my about the timing chain. I am going to have the rad replaced along with the hoses, t stat, water pump, timing chain. I plan on driving it year round since there no white stuff in SC.

John, probably no need to mention it, but if you're putting in a new rad, put in a 3 core. Also get the best 190 f T/stat for the Cleveland.
I'm envious of you going to be able to drive year round. Only getting to drive for 4-5 months is getting boring.

 

[John J]

The 3 core is on the way and I spoke to the owner of the shop and he aware of the t stat issues with the Cleveland's. He a Ford guy. Moving to the south has been a dream of mine for years. Both my kids have live there for a while and it one of the few times that they ever listen to there crazy father. I have been wanting to cruse the Blue Ridge Parkway for years and now its going to happen. Its surreal.

John J