Benny to the rescue

donkidonki

Towards the end of summer my Astra 2.2 sri 52plate developed a clattering rattle sound which seemed to be coming directly from the engine and definitely altered in line with the revs.
I took it into a local garage (Rugby) to see what it was. They changed the oil and said the noise was nothing to worry about, a harmless noise which could be lived with safely or repaired for "a lot of money" (my wife took the car in, so information was third hand)

I wasn't convinced that i should be ignoring the issue and began a search on the internet which led me to this very site. After reading quite a few posts it looked likely that I was having the dreaded timing chain problem or possibly the exhaust manifold, the timing chain being the culprit seemed more likely.
I had no confidence in my local garage for this job so looked up who the other users of the site were recommending; Benny seemed the first choice and luckily for me he was fairly local so I contacted him through the forum.

We arranged for me to take it in to have the chain kit fitted this morning, and it seems it was not a moment too soon...

The noise had stopped earlier in the week and hadn't come back, I even considered cancelling the work and waiting to see if the noise re-surfaced; good job I didn't do that.
When Benny removed the tensioner, it was jammed. You could force it to free up but it would find a worn spot and jam again, it was pretty battered inside and obviously had been unwell for some time.
Things got worse when the rocker cover came off, several pieces of the chain guide were missing! (I forget the technical name of the parts, i'm no mechanic)
The large black plastic bit had disintegrated, a few large pieces remained but a lot of it couldn't be seen. Benny warned me this was serious and I could be looking at serious damage, even a written off engine! (I was not feeling too well at this point)
It looked like the reason the noise had gone away earlier in the week was because the chain guide had broken off completely; luckily for me the chain had caught on an unsuspecting bolt which just happened to be able to do the job of the guide, it would not have lasted much longer as the chain had been doing a nice job of sawing through the bolt!
Further investigation revealed no apparent serious damage other than some debris still being unaccounted for (fingers crossed they are all sat in the sump and not still in among the vitals somewhere) so we went ahead with fitting the new chain kit.
One fitted kit later, and much crossing of fingers, the engine turned over nicely. It drove home beautifully and sounded just as good (i could swear even better) as when we first bought it.
Cheers Benny, top fella.

alanwh

Nice result mate !
Just had the same as you, but worse. The heads of the bolts had been knocked off by the whipping action of the chain tightening
after the chain guide broke.
I've just spent 2 weeks jacking on the front of the engine and extracting the broken studs.
Now thankfully its purring like a kitten,( just got to find out why the Power steering isnt working and the LPG loom is dead, but thats another story.)

Just a word of warning to you though. I was very tempted to leave the sump on, thinking the bits would be sitting harmlessly in the sump.
Thankfully I decided to do a propper job. The shattered bits of guide had been sucked through the oil baffle and were restricting the oil pick up pipe!!
You might be lucky and just have one or two bits in the sump. Personally I wouldn't take the chance as any oil restriction at all will slowly destroy your engine.