SM IE: Work on the primary timing chain

8 February 2009 | Mechanical, SM IE

Winter is here so I forget the air conditioning system for a while to do some more consequent work. In fact, even after the replacement of both secondary timing chains and the valve adjustment done last year (see previous page), this SM still makes a annoying noise when engine is hot. I now think that this noise is related to the primary timing chain, around which SM owners can often find a broken tensioner, a loose chain limiter, or of course a very loose chain. This car has always 50 000 km but it perhaps means that no maintenance has ever been made in that area.

So I plan to do something, knowing that this is especially complicated to do so without removing the engine from the car. The goal is to replace the chain, the tensioner and the limiter.

I already removed the front fenders and grill, mainly to have the grill repainted.

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As usual, I start by removing the air filters and the inlet capacity boxes

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Then I remove the cooling system parts

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The goal is to make space at the rear of the engine, where the primary timing parts are located

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On the right side, I remove the oil hoses

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Then I prepare for removing the intake manifold with the injection ramp

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These pictures will help me putting everything back together, I hope

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There is now enough space on the rear side to work…

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… and also to remove the timing housing from the top

This is only a few pictures but however a few hours of work, especially because of a stuck bolt on the intake manifold, which I eventually removed successfully, without braking anything.

The problem is that I cannot remove the water pump cover, it doesn’t move at all and I didn’t find yet a way to extract it. I hope it was not glued on purpose!