After waiting over a month for an engine stand to be delivered, my V12 teardown/rebuild continues..

Upon removal of the timing chain I've encountered much more wear on the guides and tensioner than I would have expected from an engine with 63,000 miles. There's also a strange wear pattern between the upper tensioner and its stop. Everything else so far has been in mint condition. Thoughts?

 

Seen that a bot over the years.

Snaps are a tad too close for my one remaining eye to be 100%, so my own findings is all I will state.

Lousy oil change periods.
Cheap and nasty oil used.
Too much cold stop start running, shops and back, etc.
The actaul plastic tensioner is not doing its thing, as in not released properly once the timing cover is refitted..
OR
It has been run with a broken tensioner, which was replaced??, and the wear on the guides ignored, hmmm.

One I did years ago with a snapped tensioner, he wound the engine backwards, had 340K kms, he was the 2nd owner, and no real signs of that sort of wear on anything. OK, a PreHE, but same animal.

 

Cheers Grant, all very plausible given that it belonged to a little old lady before it was parked in a barn for 20 years. I'm trying to gather as much evidence on this engine's past as I can on disassembly since I've never heard her run. It's my first V12 rebuild so I'm learning as I go.

 

You are gunna need a bigger beer fridge.

Simple engines.

Remember what I have said for too many years:

DO NOT overthink anything,.
Is a Double Six, in proper engine speak. Even simpler.

 

Update:

After attempting to mock up the JD 38 jig on the front of the engine, I discovered that the guides and sprocket towers were misaligned prior to disassembly.

 

Well found and no surprise to me.

Freddy Fiddler has been there, and now the real work begins.

I used the "kiss" method with mine, as the plate was not available. Took some SERIOUS time, and consumption, but it worked out well. Daunting for sure, but calm and quiet won out.