How can you tell if its bad With out Taking off the cover? Could a bad timing chain make the timing go up or down?

 

not for sure, but i would think if the chain stretches alittle, i could imagine how it could

 

Any more input would be greatly appreciated.

 

Take the distributor cap off so you can see the rotor. Then put a pull handle on the crank bolt and move it left and right. Look at the rotor button and if you get more than a degree of movement in the crank before the rotor moves it's time to swap the chain. A slack chain changes cam event timing.

 

yes, a stretched timing chain can and will negatively affect timing events. do what portmaster said. i've seen loose timing chains cause all kinds of problems. form bent pushrods to blown motors.

will...

 

...I've taken apart 5L's with over 200k and the timing chain's looked good to me!

 

Thanks a lot. Why did i not think of that lol. What about the dizzy how do you tell thats bad?

 

DO WHAT PORTMASTER SAYS BUT HECK aftera few thousand miles and for one reason or another having had to pull the timing cover more than once I've been disappointed to see a new chain with slack in it.........what prob are you having anyway???

 

Kind of hard to explain. It feels like I am running @8 degrees of timing and then all of a sudden it feels like 15 degrees. It all most feels like i am hitting nos when it does it, I have no nos. I am not going crazy LOL.

 

I know what you mean because of frequent cam swaps and such I remember having the same problem years ago. I got a tip from an engine builder while I was at Ellington Racing back in the 70's. Ellington Racing was a Nascar team and there stuff had to survive up to 600 miles. The Lead engine builder there told me to take the timing chain set and put it in a pot of oil set on a hot plate at 200 degrees for two hours and it would solve the chain stretch. I still use that method to this day and it works great. Don't try it in the microwave, lol