i am looking to buy a truck from a guy at work that has a 77 dodge with high miles. he says the body and drivetrain are in good shape. it runs, but really rough. backfires often, so on. it has a 318 in it. he was saying that someone told him that the timing chain has a tenency to stretsh and cause it to miss time. i was wondering if any of you had heard of this, also what do i need to look for in that year as far as reliability, do's, dont's; stay away from it if ...

thank you for the help.

 

Most small block mopar engines have a platic coated cam gear on the timing chain they are known to lose the plastic off the gear making alot of slack in the chain, also the chains will stretch on there own over time so if it has the factory timing chain and gears it could possibly be the problem. I like the hoods on the pre 79 model trucks they kind of resemble some of the old Mopar muscle car hoods.

 

I was going to mention that but totally forgot about that. They are about the only problem with those trucks, mopar engine just about last forever.

 

thanks alot for the help.

 

New here. Great website! Anyway, the timing chain gear is a good place to start. The factory nylon gear teeth do wear prematurely. With all my previous 318's, I would automatically swap the factory crank and cam gears to a 340 Double Roller timing chain set. All metal gears plus they have dual sets of teeth on them, makes for a pretty durable front end there. I put one on my old 87 W150 when it had 90,000 miles with slight timing issues and I reached 213,000 miles before I just sold it - ran great, no engine/ignition timing issues whatsoever! Not that expensive either. Check with your local Dodge dealer or there are many online sources for it. Not a huge project either. A couple hours or so.

Tim