two days in on blown head gasket replacement- (unseemly amount of time getting parts cleaned up)- cam covers off- manual seems to say in one spot that a timing chain retractor tool is required- another place seems not to.... once i time the cam and loosen the bolts to the sprocket, will i be able to remove cams and heads or do i need to spring for the $225 tensioning tool that i will only use once? thanks all

 

the problem you will have is the heads tend to seize to the studs and the tench will snap when you pull up on it because it is plastic and brittle the best is to take the engine out of car so you can push the heads up with a jack after soaking the studs with w/d 40 liquid wrench ect do not clean pistons heads will have to shaved flat you can not get timing cover off with heads on ,I would reseal oil pan new tench done this job to many times to count take your time steve

 

I've never worked on a V12, but I do know the heads can be very difficult to remove. Yours is a '71, so if the heads have never been off, you will have a job on your hands. When the heads are off, you need to make sure you don't rotate the engine unless you have clamped down the cylinder liners. You might need the special camchain tool, but I don't know, however you can always sell it on to another rebuilder, or try to find somebody else doing the same on the internet. I think the special tool is to stop the chain disappearing into the timing chest when you take the heads of, because unlke the sixes, there are no built-in cam sprocket support brackets. There are probably workarounds for the tool, but hopefully others can chime in on this one.

 

am novice to internals of this engine, steve- and particularly to meaning of term "tench"- you are way ahead of me- does timing cover need to come off?