Dale K - any further develpement on this issue....
Have you discovered any "quick fix" on the tensioners??

Nothing new. I never got an answer about doing it without the cam locking tool. I'm planning on taking my car to the local indy after the holidays.

I cleaned the two lower tensioners today without using the cam locking tool and it went fine, in terms of not skipping timing. My method was to lock the crankshaft, take the tensioners out one at a time, clean and then replace before moving on to the next tensioner.


To lock the crank, I just rotated the crank pulley CLOCKWISE ONLY with a combination 24 mm wrench (socket would not clear), lined up the marks and pinned the pulley with a longish 8mm bolt through the hole that was near 11 o'clock on the pulley.

Then I heated up some mineral spirits and Marvel Mystery oil that I put in bottles and placed in boiling water. One at a time, I took out a tensioner, submerged in mineral spirits and plunged repeatedly till it ran clean, same with the MMO and finally in clean oil, the immediately installed it completely. Torqued to 59 ft-lbs.

Good news is it was easy, bad news and I is a still get clatter on start up. By the way, I also changed the oil to Castrol 10-40 at the same time. I don't know if the upper tensioner (which I didn't clean because you need to remove the AC compressor to get at it) may be making the noise, although this morning I listened to the upper tensioner with a stethoscope at dead cold startup and the tensioner did not make noise. Maybe the noise is not even the chain tensionrs, possibly valve clatter before the hydraulic lifters get pumped up.

Anyway, I'm done chasing the clatter. I've tried really thick oil, 15-50 and 20-50 and thin oil, 0-40, and nothing seems to make a difference. I give up.

DISCLAIMER-I'm not recommending anyone follow my method, especially if you have a 3 chain motor, several knowledgable posters recommend against removing the tensioners without locking the cams.

San - good to hear you attacked the problem head on, you have done exactly what I was planning on doing. You have saved me - and maybe others - a lot of agro and effort !!
Sorry to hear that the problem is still evident - perhaps we are all going to have to live with it untill the sky falls in.......
Thanks for your contribution.

Yeah, thanks for the update. I too, am uncertain whether or not the noise is lash adjusters or faulty tensioners. I was thinking about the tensioners since fixing/replacing the lash adjusters would cost a fortune. I wasn't planning on cleaning mine but replacing them with new. I don't see how you would know for sure unless you replaced them and I think the parts have been updated since the car's were built, so apparently they're a know trouble spot. I think I've seen a picture of a replacement tensioner with a big spring to keep the chain kind of tight during startup even if the hydraulic aspect has bled down overnight.

I haven't talked with my mechanic yet about the work. I don't like working under my car alone so I'm kind of afraid to attempt it DIY.

Nice job on getting in there! How much oil did you loose upon removing the lower tensioners. Did it appear that proper oil pressure is needed for them to work or are they spring loaded? We're you able to reach them all with the car on jack stands?

Since I was also changing the oil, the oil was already drained at the time that I removed the tensioners, and only a small amount came out. The tensioners appear to have an internal spring, after I had pumped out all the oil, there will still pressure pushing the piston outward.

It's really easy to get at the tensioners with a car on jack stands. The IMS tensioner is horizontal, so it's a bit of a tight fit, but really pretty easy. The tensioner for 1-3 bank points straight down, so that was a piece of cake.

As I mentioned before, I didn't do the tensioner for bank 4-6, which is towards the top of the motor and requires that you move the air conditioning compressor out of the way to access it.

I was able to get all 3 tensioners out when I did my IMSB upgrade. I remember the third one being a pain, but I didn't remove the AC compressor. I can't remeber step by step what I did but I do remember being patient and going slow to get it out.
I locked the cams and TDC, but I was also doing the IMS bearing at the time.

What is the cam locking procedure
; and special tools required (5-chain)

Hi there!

Could you please let me know how much time a mechanics need to change both cam chain tensioner ?

nobody knows?

Changing the cam chain tensioners is not a difficult job, except for limited access on the top (bank 2) one. You could do it in an hour. Doing the variocam tensioners is more complicated, especially with the engine in the car. I did it with the engine removed: a big project for me! Apparently it can be done without dropping the motor but it would be complicated for a first timer.

Thank you Newart !

It's the Variocam tensioner II have to change according my Indy
But it's an expensive job and I would like to know how much time it take to see if my Indy quote me the right labour time !

If it's for camshaft deviations, it will probably be the tensioner pads. Get a couple of quotes: Rombotis Tuning, TMR Auto, EK Performance, for example.