He was the victim of highway robbery. Given the **** poor job his mechanic ended up doing for his close to $3000 tab it's doubly offensive. A COMPLETE kit runs about $400 from a reputable eBay seller (100% satisfaction after 16 years of selling this stuff) and given the number of actual hours involved he should have been out the door with everything for no more than $1500+/-.

My tensioners fell apart and I had to not only replace all the chains, tensioners, seals, gaskets, and what nots, but I also had to remove one head, replace two valves, and all the seals and gaskets that went with that...AND replace the plastic thermostat while we were in there and I ended up at about $2K with $800 of that being the independents labor.

 

Good job even if you had a long way around..... through no fault of your own

 

Stevep10 - For now the original chains will have to do... <grin>

 

In my option, he 'most likely' did a good job with what he replaced, but didn't have the timing tools to lock the cams in place to change the chains and didn't realize that changing the secondary tensioners, you don't need to lock the cams in place.

He had my car for two weeks and just wanted to be finished and get paid. So, he never let on about not changing the secondary tensioners and the next day I drove to New Jersey and back to Cape Cod (approx 600 miles) before I looked at the old parts and pictures he took; and posted the post on this forum, that lead me to do the rest of the job myself.

 

I personally thing the chains will last a lot longer and probably even beyond 100K. If they get too sloppy I would thing you would get some rattling at start up. I am going to have my primary rails and tensioners changed shortly but leave the chains alone at 64,000 miles.

 

But your in there anyway.
You have to go through all that work just to get to the blades and tensioners, I really can't see the point of doing the job twice.
Once for the blades and tensioners and then again for the chains 'IF' they start to rattle?
Do them once, do them right, forget about them for years to come.
At your local indy that's two lots of labour charges for doing one job.
And we all know what the cost of labour is these days, even at the indy's.

 

Agreed that at 30K I expect that Aleather's chains will be OK - especially since the tensioners didn't lose their plastic caps so there's been no metal-to-metal contact with the secondaries.

I'm with stevep10 though if you have to go into the primaries anyway, the added cost of the chains is small compared to the PITA of having to do the job twice.

Just my

 

Michaelh; Wasn't there was some metal to metal action taking place within the primary chains, when you look at the old parts I got back (below)???: But even through, I think the chains are ok - I hope :-)

 

I was just thinking about that primary guide that broke; Would it be a good idea, next time I have my oil changed, have them pull the oil pan and look for the plastic piece that broke off?

 

Just spotted the missing piece on the chain guide 3rd down in your pic. I don't see any evidence of metal-to-metal contact on the edge, although is that a tiny piece of metal bent up on one side at the end of the groove? They're probably the least broken up set I've seen posted here, but they're much better in your dustbin rather than the car

The secondary tensioners haven't lost their plastic shoes, so that's something you won't find in your sump. The drunken one looks as if it was ready to keel over and put you into a world of pain.

You'll likely be worrying about the missing piece(s) - it will do no harm to drop the sump and check for debris either in there or in the oil pump strainer. For the sake of a gasket and a bit of extra effort, I would.

 

I don't drive this car very much. Only in summer months. The rest of the year I take the X300 out of storage and drive. We also have a utility car fro errant. Changing the chains is a lot more complicated which leaves room for more errors. Since I'm getting up there in age I just don't think the chains will ever be a problem as long as I have the car. If it was a daily driver I wouldn't hesitate.