Timing Chain Problems

This information applies to all cars with a timing chain (NOT a timing belt).

A colleague of mine recently had a problem with her 2001 Defender Td5.

For some not inconsiderable time, my friend had been complaining of a noise coming from the engine of her beautiful 2001 Td5 Defender. It was somewhere to the front of the engine, but it was difficult to pinpoint.

The garage she uses thought it was the aircon pump and advised that as it was still working, not to worry about it until it stopped putting out the cold stuff, then get it fixed.

For the next twelve months, the noise progressively got worse.
Within the last 2 months, a strange hunting misfiring motion started, especially in the mid rev range, as though the car was being intermittently starved of fuel.

Back to the garage (they are not Landie specialists) and they diagnosed the problem as an electrical fault and recommended that my friend visit a Land Rover dealer. or someone who could connect the car to a computer and run a diagnostic check. This was arranged and an appointment was made.

The day before the visit to the Land Rover garage, on the way to work, she noticed that the car was now hunting even more (intermittently running rough) not only in the mid range, but also at faster speeds and at idle the engine ran with a miss.
She rang the Land Rover garage and they agreed to look at the car earlier (the appointment was for the following day). 

As she drove through the work gates the engine stalled, as though she had run over a kerb and the car bounced oddly back and forth and the car stopped dead.
Trying to restart it, there was a dull clunk, sounding as if the starter bendix was stuck on the flywheel, but it was not.

The garage recovered the car and they made a report.  The problem was caused by the timing chain hydraulic tensioner. Somehow the timing chain had stretched so far that the hydraulic tensioner could not keep the timing chain at the correct tension and eventually the tensioner completely fell out and the timing chain stopped doing what it was supposed to do.

All the rough running and noise were from the timing chain and when you think about it, it is now obvious that this was a big problem and should have been spotted ages ago.  The hunting or rough running was caused by the timing chain moving in and out of sync so the timing from the crankshaft to the camshaft was constantly altering.  I am surprised that the car ran at all.

Timing chain problems - A lesson learned.

The lessons learned are that if you get a noise from the front of the engine, do a proper check and establish the reason for the noise.  If the car starts misfiring, or running roughly, get it checked out straight away.  In the long run it will save you money.

I won't tell how much my friend is paying for the repairs to her Land Rover, but with replacement of the timing chain and all related components plus other parts destroyed when the chain stopped working I think she could buy herself a rather nice second hand car.

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