I vote hookers and blow.

 

Are we having a VWandDodge moment?

 

 

So I now have a question. I recently had my heads off for valve seals. The heads had part numbers on them, the intake gaskets were after market, along with the head gaskets, and the cylinders were cross hatched and very smooth. Leading me to believe my engine's been rebuilt. The odometer reads 233,xxx miles, but the runs too damn good for that many miles. Regardless, I feel its been rebuilt, though I do not know how many miles are now on it. I'm guessing about 80-90k, maybe. Now should I to the timing chain? How many miles until those suckers stretch out?

 

If you're this deep, it wouldn't hurt to swap the timing chain. Preventative maintenance is always proper maintenance.

 

If you can still see the crosshatch in the cylinder walls, it doesn't have 80 or 90K miles on it. My guess would be less than 10K.

 

Well the you're probably right, but I know it's got more than 10k, i bought it two years ago and have put 25k on it since. So as I mentioned, I don't know the mileage but I know it's not too high.

 

Then inspect it for slack.

 

I wouldn't doubt that your engine has been rebuilt... but there's the possibility that it's only had heads installed (cracked heads are very common in these engines).

If you are not 100% sure, don't assume it's been completely rebuilt.

My first truck had 195,000 miles when I replaced the head gaskets. It had perfect cylinders (smooth no vertical scoring) and visible cross-hatch. It was definitely the original engine and probably would have looked like that at 250k also. It was a Toyota though...

What I would do? Pull the distributor cap off. Get a buddy to put a socket on the crank bolt and rotate the crankshaft back and forth slowly (a few degrees clockwise and a few degrees counterclockwise). The goal is to keep an eye on the distributor rotor.

If your buddy is rotating the engine back and forth and your dist. rotor button is obviously delayed (takes a bit each way to catch up the "slack" in the chain), chances are that you probably want to invest in a new timing chain, or your distributor gear may be worn... I personally haven't ever done this on a Mopar engine, so I can't tell you what to expect.

The only way to know for sure, is to have a look at the chain itself.

-JT

 

My truck has 155xxx miles on it now, original timing chain, motor, etc. After reading this im thinking I should prob replace it? What is the difference it makes? Better acceleration, more responsive, etc? and do you have to do anything special to replace it or is it a few bolts, pretty simple? sorry for the bombardment of questions lol