Patient is a newly acquired 01 9-5 with 87K. In a nutshell dropped the pan and lots of sludge found though not terminal, but also found 2 round brown plastic pieces that formed a semi circle in the pan. Looks like tab of chain guide where bolt goes through to mount on engine. Timing chain does clatter alot. Looking at guides from top they seem ok but I noticed the guide on the tensioner side is so tight against the chain I can't budge the chain with my fingers. There's absolutely no chain slack and I can't even slide the chain at all on the guide. Took the tensioner off and its at 20mm! Reinstalled it and measured again and got 16/17mm. Still too long which shouldn't be considering its only got 87K. Could the (what I think) is the broken pieces of timing chain guide be causing a bad reading?
Anyway now I'm trying to figure out what to do. Doesn't the tensioner push the top of the guide against the chain and the bottom pivots? Both giudes seem to be ok and the tensioner guide seems to be working ok. I'd really hate to get into the huge job of doing the chain guides and everything else there if the racket is just a worn loose chain. Should I just roll in a chain first and see what happens or should I just dive into replacing all the timing components considering the broken guide bits in the pan? Any advise/input would be greatly appreciated.
Dave