I knew I had some slack, but no idea it was this bad, or that the set was probably original to the motor!
Getting ready to do just that to an engine never opened before…has about 15 degrees of crank movement before the cam moves
Yikes. Definitely time. Hah, I amused myself there…sorry.
I had read that it was a valid test to check slack through the fuel pump opening, and did so when I bought the car back in 2021 and was replacing a leaky pump. From the pictures you can see that the driver side of the chain is under stress and it is the passenger side that is slack, so I was lulled into putting it off. I really do feel lucky it didn’t come apart when I was “exercising” the engine on backroads or the highway.
I fell victim to the same slack test, and was surprised how loose the chain really was when the engine was opened up. But my phenolic timing gear looked like new compared to yours.
Now you have to take the oil pan off & clean the teeth out of the oil pickup. Its easier to buy a new one than to try and clean out the old one.
The pan leaks as does the rear main, so they were already on my list. I hadn’t thought about the pickup mesh, so thank you for that tip.
Back around 1970 my Dad bought a 1963 Falcon Sprint from the original owner. The engine had no oil pressure so the purchase price was around $75. The pickup screen on the oil pump was blocked by nylon particles from the timing chain. My dad replaced the timing chain, sprockets and gaskets and the pump. Lots of cleaning but he did not have to rebuild the engine, it was fine. He sold the Falcon for like $900 - a relative fortune for the time.
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Great memory and hopefully the Internet will make sure it isn’t lost in time.
I think I was around 13 at the time. I lusted after that Falcon Sprint and it’s factory 4 speed. The 260-2V probably did not have very much power. Anyway it got sold and I never saw it again.
Very cool car. They took off down under but I suppose the Mustang buried them here in the U.S. My eldest saw one that was from that era at the old Pate show years ago and went nuts for it. I told him we were looking for a Cougar, and he was quite upset we didn’t buy it as our next project.
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Had this happen on my CJ while in the Air Force in Great Falls MT. FEs are cold blooded SOBs and they do not like minus 45*. It ran for an amazingly long time (but not very well) on the aluminum center. Took it all apart and checked everything else. It’s crazy how much nylon shards can get stuck in the pickup. Had everything checked out, boiled and blown out. Replaced the cam timing set and all the bearings and had all the push rods checked and everything was OK, no valve piston contact. Even after all the effort to make sure there were no shards left anywhere in the engine, I still occasionally found a shard in an oil change for a couple years, where did those things hide? Stupid design, but FEs are tough motors. Mine still runs great although it mostly only does parades and car shows anymore. Just hearing it run still makes me young and stupid again (OK, there is an argument that there might never have been a time when I wasn’t stupid).