Just pulled the front cover and the cams and nothing is bent.I am so friggin happy. The local carquest can get me all the parts less the o rings for the coolant tubes etc for 758.00 . All the chains,guides,tensioners,water pump and gaskets.Nice deal. Car will be back up and running in 2 weeks. Going to get the tools from a local shop that for some reason has them. Wow did I luck out.

 

Best of luck with the rebuild.

Be careful with those little locking pins on all the tensioners! Don't pull them out too early, drop them down in the engine, or forget to pull them out once in place...

 

Car is back up and running. It's a 7.5 cylinder though. #6 cylinder is down on compression a bit,comes back about 1600 rpm. I figure a valve is either burned a bit or bent about 2 degrees. Either way I don't care. I LOVE driving this car. Previous owner did a super job of maintaining the car . Perfect top,interior is just perfect -slight wear on drivers seat back on left. Perfect paint,even has 4 good p zero's. Probably gonna pull the head this winter and fix the compression issue. Wanted to take a sec to thank everyone here for the information both about doing the job and the "go for it" in regards to not having to pull the heads just because the tensioners let go.Saved a lot of time and money and get to drive the car till temperatures dictate otherwise. Thanks a lot.

 

So. After driving the car 500 miles with a miss at idle -off idle car runs perfectly. On my way to put the car in storage it ran perfectly. No skip,no check engine light,no nothing. So when spring comes along I will put it through emissions and get it registered and just enjoy my new ride. Thanks to all you folks who posted your previous histories and gave me the confidence to try the "easy" repair. THANKS A LOT!