Bolt on timing chain tensioner

pishta said
I wonder if the tensioner of the 3.1 was taken out by the busted chain, but that is a shame on that one. Hard to image that plastic busting a chain but hey, you experienced it

Possible, but have you ever seen a chain split the links at the pin hole? Something had to stretch the chain to the point of breaking the links.

Cam and valve train was free to move after replacement.

This is a respective photo I found on the web of the type of broken chain I had.

My gears had no noticable wear marks on them, like in this photo

RustyRatRod said
think the nylon...plastic....whatever you wanna call it, like everything else has improved over the decades. The nylon that was on factory camshaft sprockets back in the day was hardly what the polymers of today are. Even 30 years ago was light years ahead of the polymers of the 1960s and 70s.

You said a mouth full there RRR.

There is a small block Ford rebuild book that documented the timing gear nylon teeth issue. And the gear that I took off had some of the teeth still attached and others missing. But the others could be picked off easily.

The 2.0 was a clearance motor so I was able to replace the chain and it ran till I got rid of the car for a transmission issue

The 3.1 was said to be a clearance motor but 2 cylinders begged to differ.

The car was awesome, drove smooth, got good gas mileage, and could run on methanol. (It was a CA car from a fleet of experimental M85 variable fuel cars from the early 90s)