When I first looked at my car I immediately understood the low price. One side rusted like it was from New Jersey. A tear in the top about 3". Then I did the math on the kilometer mileage and saw the bill for the tensioners done and decided to throw the dice. It is far from perfect but the sound of the V8 and having the top down experience again makes me smile every time I drive anywhere. It appears whoever owned your car at least was an oil changer, but I am not sure I could tackle the timing chain job, even though I have rebuilt pushrod engines in my past. All things equal I think I would drive it and hope the gods are smiling. Good luck

 

The plastic tensioners died in my car at 116,000 (under the ownership of the previous owner).

cost him about $5,000 to fix.


asking for trouble to drive an X-100 without the tensioner upgrade.

Z

 

When I did mine at around 40,000 miles, there were cracks starting to appear on the other side of the tensioner (see photo below). Yours may well be the same. While you have the valve cover off you should replace that secondary tensioner using the zip tie method and do the same for the other side. You might want to drop the oil pan to check for debris before deciding whether to go further and do everything which is a much bigger job than doing the uppers.

 

mmm-hmmm
just shy of 50k on these ones from 2001 (changed last year)

 

I do not mean to sound as though I don't appreciate the car. I do understand a declining return. When faced with a $2500 repair bill for a $4000 car most would see the spread and feel that unless you're coming out with a huge bump in equity, do not throw good money after bad. However, my Father said you cannot pay too much for a good car nor too little on a bad one. Somewhere in the middle lies the balance. Top down motoring with the sound of a V8 is sublime in any circumstance.

 

No cracks. Yet

Washers under bolts.
I finally got around to replacing the right side tensioner. The old tensioner had no discernable cracks, but I'm glad I am replacing the old tensioners with the upgraded metal bodies ones. It is worth the peace of mind. The bolts sent to me by Barratt, and the only ones listed in the (paper) parts catalog for these tensioners were longer than the originals, not the shorter bolts that should go with the new tensioners! So I reused the original bolts with a few washers under the bolt head to make up the difference. I'll go to the hardware store tomorrow and see if I can get M6x35mm flanged bolts, and replace them before I close it up and do the other side.

 

Your photo certainly shows what looks like a crack starting in the usual place on that plastic tensioner, but I doubt if you would have got another 25 years out of it without failing.

 

I'm so far down the rabbit hole.

Finally got to the bottom of a clack-a-lacking noise- while my secondary tensioners were replaced, the primary tensioners and guides were loose, so they had to go. Problem solved!