Timing belt vs chain
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JTK
$100 Site Donor 2025
You would need a means for a chain to be oil lubed and sealed off from leaks. Belts are dry and belt covers are not air tight. It wouldn't be worth the hassle IMO.
Joel
Joel
How long will my timing chain last in my 4.0L Jeep?
Anyone remember the timing chain on the GM 2.5 I4? Ha..that's because it didn't have one. On the early Grand Ams / Calais, Fieros, Centurys, Cieras etc. they had gears, originally made of plastic. That later bit them in the ________ and they did a recall to replace them all with steel. The plastic ones wore, got extremely noisy, and eventually cracked.
It might have just been a bulletin...that was a lifetime ago, but I remember we kept a LOT of those new gearsets in stock, and I believe they were steel. We had some really noisy Grand Ams and Fieros come through the door that year. If they weren't burning oil, they were splitting timing gears. What a POS engine.
when i worked at a used car dealership anytime we had a grand ams come in first thing we did was send them out so they could replace the gears because no matter what they were always made noise and it a tough sell when they make all that racket
I had a 1986 F250 with the Straight Six 300 and it came with a fibre camshaft gear. The gear wore out twice and stranded me on the highway about four years apart and at the exact same spot on the highway. I then replaced the fibre gear with an aluminium gear and had no more problems. I was warned that the aluminium gear would be noisy but I did not hear any extra noise with the aluminium gear.
JTK
$100 Site Donor 2025
So CRV's came with two different 2.4L's for 2002!?
Joel
Never had any issues on any Ford or Chevy patrol cars with over 100k on the clock. My family's Mercury Grand Marquis broke a chain at 103K. My 1983 Nissan pkp went 176k with a chain and had no issues.
my 88 BMW 528e has a timing belt. Its recommended interval is 4yrs/60k miles. It costs less than 30$ for a new belt and tensioner. Its a 4 hr driveway job with basic tools to R+R. What is the big deal?
325,000 on my 240D....no mention of the chain being replaced in service records. Don't know what the original owner used for oil.
I check the chain last month and the cam timing was about 2 degrees retarded.
I check the chain last month and the cam timing was about 2 degrees retarded.
The timing chain in a 4.0 Jeep will last until the cows come home
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So CRV's came with two different 2.4L's for 2002!?
Joel
He's probably talking about the accessory belt. It still has one of those.
I replaced the chain tensioner on my 93 190 Mercedes 2.3 at 160,000 miles just for preventive maintaince. Its an easy job. My Benz uses a double row chain, so I'm sure it will last for the cars life.
Nissan VQ's seem to do very very well with their chains...well over 300k in many examples, in fact ive only heard of one needing replacing and that was due to long term lack of luberication....never heard of one breaking
So... how one may know it is time to replace the chain (maker mentions no service interval on mine). What are "the voices" ?
The only chain I've witnessed that gave signs of suicide were on a 96 Cavalier. At idle, it just made a muffled rattling sound...kinda hard to explain. It probably rattled at all RPMs, but the engine noise drowned it out. It was obvious something was wrong, but I wasn't able to determine what it was. The Chevy garage knew what it was the second they heard it.
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