So far this has not been the ordeal I built it up to be. Thanks to all on the forum. So far so good. The biggest surprise was not the tensioners, but the chain guides. This engine is a reman nikasil. It only has about 35K on the rebuild. But after reading all the gloom and doom about the tensioners I decided to take the plunge.

Granted I have not started the car yet but I marked the cam gears and counted the links on the chains and but it back exactly as I took it off.

Look at these pics of the old parts.

One piece of info I learned about today was that the upper tensioners are bank specific. I realized this after I aimlessly began pulling parts off. Thanks to a quick phone call to Fla steve he was able to help me get the right tensioner on the correct bank. The tensioners are marked with an LB for left bank and RB for right bank.

The really big question I had before I began was is the New used transmission I got last spring going to have the same markings as the transmission that was originally in the car. Why? Well the new used transmission I got was supposedly out of a Range Rover or Land Rover. The answer is no. But the place for the lug to go was still on the flywheel but the triangle mark marking the spot for the lug was not there. It took a few rotations of the crank to find it but eventually I did and the cam flats were dead on flat and true. Lock'em down.

 

Those are pretty good looking tensioners!
Still starting to fail though, so a worthwhile job. Well done!

 

It is impossible to interchange or mix up the upper tensioners, so no worry there

 

what was the first clue you needed valve drive work. Is heat the demon or wear or both that kill the cam chain system? Will you have the same problem with the new one?

 

The tensioners are a well documented failure point that can destroy the engine.
The new ones should be good to go.

You have a '98 right? Have you had them checked?