I purchased a 99 XJ VP cheap for some parts. It was cheap because it had slipped it's timing chain according to the shop owner that ended up with the car from a customer. The body has hail and other damage and is not worth saving in my opinion. It does turn over. Since the car only has 78,000 miles would it be worth investigating to see if any damage has been done and try to get the engine working. I have no use for the engine and plan to part out the car retaining bits that are compatible with my 95 XJR. Any way to check on the state of the engine short of pulling heads? FYI, I'm located in the US - Montana.

Thanks.

 

Just jump the teeth back into position and try to start it up like this guy does. Hopefully it was just a failure of the two upper cam chain tensioners.

 

Interesting video. Thanks.

 

Remove the cam cover(s) and rotate the engine using the crankshaft pulley bolt in a clock direction ONLY when viewed from the front of the vehicle to see how far off the exhaust cams are.

If the AJ26/27 skips more than two teeth, the result is bent valves on that head.

 

Thank you. I wondered if there was some leeway. So one tooth it is.

 

I re-read that - so two teeth off would be OK then?

Thanks.

 

In my experience dealing with customers bringing in their rough or non running cars due to a tensioner issue really just depends.

For example:

If a car drove to the shop and their engine is running rough and I pull both covers on it and it’s off by one tooth, most likely it’ll be fine after new secondary tensioners get replaced.

This is where it gets sketchy. If a car gets towed in and will not run...

Pull both covers and found 2 teeth off on one sprocket. I ask the customer how fast they were going. If they were cruising at 45 mph (+/- 5 mph, low rpm), there’s a 50/50 chance that it’ll be ok. If they were accelerating and or over 2k rpm’s, I’d say it was done.

I haven’t had a great deal of cars where it was off more than one tooth, but when it was two teeth, it was 50/50 chance at best. If it’s three teeth off, ZERO % chance of it being ok. Good luck to you.