Baking Timing Chain in Oil Before Install

[Trav]

Originally Posted by KneeGrinder
I don't care what anyone says, if you got one of Smokies tips/tricks, I would use it just to pay homage!

Back in my SBC days I tried to learn as many of ol smokies tricks I could, he was known as a legend for so many years for a reason! He was one of my top legendary engine builders of all times. The world misses him. RIP Smokey


Thats the thing, is it really one of his tricks? I cant see how this "trick is helping much if at all to reduce wear in the chain and just as importantly at the sprockets.
I have never done it and never had any problem so I am not starting now. Imagine if this was a fake, that A hole that posted it on fakebook is laughing his arse off every time someone post they put it in the oven.

 

[MarkM66]

Originally Posted by BMWTurboDzl
Originally Posted by Trav
Skeptical, race and endurance engines are usually not running stock chains. Most are using heavier chains and sprockets and using milled covers in some cases to accommodate the extra thickness or belt or gear drives.



^ This

Also race engines get torn down / rebuilt more often.


But Smokey Yunick was a stock car mechanic. So a lot of the parts in those days had to be off the shelf stock parts.

 

[RDY4WAR]

Originally Posted by Trav
Thats the thing, is it really one of his tricks? I cant see how this "trick is helping much if at all to reduce wear in the chain and just as importantly at the sprockets.
I have never done it and never had any problem so I am not starting now. Imagine if this was a fake, that A hole that posted it on fakebook is laughing his arse off every time someone post they put it in the oven.


I know the guy personally. We've had lengthy discussions about engine building and racing. He's shown me pictures of him with Smokey, also with David Vizard, and he's built high horsepower engines, mostly for drag boat applications, for the past 50 years. He's genuine.

 

[StevieC]

Someone inform GM that they just need to bake their chains, no D1G2 oils are required.

 

[Chris142]

Originally Posted by KneeGrinder
I don't care what anyone says, if you got one of Smokies tips/tricks, I would use it just to pay homage!

Back in my SBC days I tried to learn as many of ol smokies tricks I could, he was known as a legend for so many years for a reason! He was one of my top legendary engine builders of all times. The world misses him. RIP Smokey

I met him and did not know it! Around 1990 I had a 340 Duster with a 360 I had assembled myself in it. Car had some compression,Holley 4bbl, 3.55 gears. I was @ los angelas county raceway in Little rock,Ca. I could not get that stupid car to get into the 14's. It ran a 15.03,15.08 etc. I was in the pits with the hood up trying to see why it was so slow.

A guy wearing a white mechanics suit and hat walked over to me. He grabbed a couple of my plugs I had out. He then asked if I had and wire cutters. I handed them to him and he cut my ground electrode off at the bend!

I was in shock. He told me to do that to the other 7 plugs so I did. He also warned me that I would need new plugs and wires tomorrow. I said thanks and he walked off.

Next pass was a 14.77!

My guess is that he saw how they were burning and knew that opening up the gap would improve the burn.

A few months later I was at our local hot rod shop and happened to see a book on their turnstile. On the cover was the guy that cut my electrode off! I was a tuning book by Smokey yunick!

I had talked to him and didn't know who he was. I still have my wire cutters he used though.

 

[Trav]

That maybe true but I'm still not putting timing chains in my oven with engine oil. If there were any less wear at all its not worth the ration of sh.. my old lady would dish out when she saw that.

 

[BMWTurboDzl]

Originally Posted by Trav
That maybe true but I'm still not putting timing chains in my oven with engine oil. If there were any less wear at all its not worth the ration of sh.. my old lady would dish out when she saw that.

Gas grill ?

 

[DoubleWasp]

Some of the best and most winning V8 engine builders I know don't bake their chains, so I'm going to have to conclude that this was a 1970s solution for a 1970s problem at best. I personally ally have yet to be plagued by these massive timing problems either. Now that many racers run a belt drive conversion, rather than a chain, hot baking a chain seems an even more useless idea. Just do a race belt and forget the whole thing if one is really stretching chains like King Kong.

Whether or not Smokey was behind it is an even greater question. Like Confucius, Smokey has been credited with a lot that he never had anything to do with since his death, and even in life.

But again, best case scenario is that this was a good idea more than 40 years ago.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted by DriveHard
This may have been good for motorcycle chains "back in the day", but not smart for today's motorcycle chains. Today's motorcycle chains have 2 individual O-rings for each side of every individual pin, with grease sealed inside. Heating them like this would only encourage o-ring degradation, leaking the grease out of the pin, or allowing the lower viscosity oil to leak in, diluting the grease. Today's chains should be kept clean and lightly oiled...the oil's purpose is only to keep corrosion at bay and lubricate the chain/sprocket interface, not the pins!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-ring_chain



Never said that it was...and didn't think the need to add that modern chains are different...as I was talking what people used to do with open chains...back in the day.

 

[CR94]

Originally Posted by Shannow
... Submerge it in a tray, bake it (forcing the oil to be thinner, and the air bubbles being forced out through thermal expansion...THEN as it cools, ensuring that every crevice is filled with cold thick oil.
...
I'd bet my left one (I think it's my best personally) that the difference is in the breakin, as the chain is actually fully full of oil the first crank of the engine, versus the drizzle of oil/assembly lube that (most of us do) in the standard sense. ...
Which is the very same point I made earlier, with less elaborate explanation of the obvious.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted by Trav
Thats the thing, is it really one of his tricks? I cant see how this "trick is helping much if at all to reduce wear in the chain and just as importantly at the sprockets.
I have never done it and never had any problem so I am not starting now. Imagine if this was a fake, that A hole that posted it on fakebook is laughing his arse off every time someone post they put it in the oven.

From what I've read about Smokey, he wouldn't have been above pulling off a gag himself.

 

[DoubleWasp]

I have to agree. Wouldn't put it beyond him to be up in racer heaven laughing his behind off at people baking timing chains like a Thanksgiving turkey. I hate to say it, but I'd give him a high five for that.

 

[KneeGrinder]

Originally Posted by Trav
Originally Posted by KneeGrinder
I don't care what anyone says, if you got one of Smokies tips/tricks, I would use it just to pay homage!

Back in my SBC days I tried to learn as many of ol smokies tricks I could, he was known as a legend for so many years for a reason! He was one of my top legendary engine builders of all times. The world misses him. RIP Smokey


Thats the thing, is it really one of his tricks? I cant see how this "trick is helping much if at all to reduce wear in the chain and just as importantly at the sprockets.
I have never done it and never had any problem so I am not starting now. Imagine if this was a fake, that A hole that posted it on fakebook is laughing his arse off every time someone post they put it in the oven.


Keep in mind Smokey was building engines some 50/60 years ago from this time, things have changed. Who knows, the chains may absorb more oil into the link pins from a good heated soak. If Smokey really did it, I'm sure he did it for a good reason. Come to think of it, I think I had an engine building book he wrote back in the day, but I don't remember anything about soaking chains.

 

[KneeGrinder]

Originally Posted by Chris142
Originally Posted by KneeGrinder
I don't care what anyone says, if you got one of Smokies tips/tricks, I would use it just to pay homage!

Back in my SBC days I tried to learn as many of ol smokies tricks I could, he was known as a legend for so many years for a reason! He was one of my top legendary engine builders of all times. The world misses him. RIP Smokey

I met him and did not know it! Around 1990 I had a 340 Duster with a 360 I had assembled myself in it. Car had some compression,Holley 4bbl, 3.55 gears. I was @ los angelas county raceway in Little rock,Ca. I could not get that stupid car to get into the 14's. It ran a 15.03,15.08 etc. I was in the pits with the hood up trying to see why it was so slow.

A guy wearing a white mechanics suit and hat walked over to me. He grabbed a couple of my plugs I had out. He then asked if I had and wire cutters. I handed them to him and he cut my ground electrode off at the bend!

I was in shock. He told me to do that to the other 7 plugs so I did. He also warned me that I would need new plugs and wires tomorrow. I said thanks and he walked off.

Next pass was a 14.77!

My guess is that he saw how they were burning and knew that opening up the gap would improve the burn.

A few months later I was at our local hot rod shop and happened to see a book on their turnstile. On the cover was the guy that cut my electrode off! I was a tuning book by Smokey yunick!

I had talked to him and didn't know who he was. I still have my wire cutters he used though.



Yea, I bought that book too! My 69 Camaro 355ci 4sp used to pull a couple car lengths in each gear on those 340/360 Dusters. Was that the one with the shaker hood? Or was that a Cuda that had a 340 with the shaker hood?

@ los angelas county raceway- Is Palmdale, that's what we called it. My brother had a TA/FC and did practice runs there, late 90's

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted by DoubleWasp
I have to agree. Wouldn't put it beyond him to be up in racer heaven laughing his behind off at people baking timing chains like a Thanksgiving turkey. I hate to say it, but I'd give him a high five for that.

I'd have to check through my collection of C&D, but someone mentioned a couple of the ribs he pulled over the years and the stunts he'd try.