indoor

The solution is to put that intake cam back in the EXACT position you found it. And respect the original spacing on chain(16 or whatever your engine calls for). Look at how spacing is determined from Cruby's pics and match it. If you marked the chain, it is better to match the marks.

indoor

Your original post, the very first one in this thread, mentions how to dealer said the engine might have bent valves. Because they noticed how the cam shafts don't line up with the grooves. You might be lucky and the valves are ok. We are talking possible valves bent, before you tried your skills on the car. So you didn't screw up that bad

Now, there's a tiny chance the valves are not bent. You have to eventually line up the cams on that bank with the notches while the engine is set at TDC. Again, true TDC

CRuby

^^^ What he said!

As you likely have learned by now, your initial approach for determining TCD by alignment of just the intake cam mark is not the way to define TDC, especially if the lower tensioner shoe (on bank 1) was busted up & missing when you did it. For bank 1, the lower portion of the chain is primarily loaded due to the CW rotation direction. Upper shoe is loaded on bank 2. So if bank 1 lower shoe was missing there will be more chain slack btwn Ex & In cams, & it's possible to have one of the cams aligned with it's marks & the other not. However, I'm surprised it would be 90 deg on the ex cam, but I don't know how much cam rotation the shoes account for.
All is not lost yet...assuming timing chain didn't jump a tooth or more & you haven't turned engine over. Reassemble tensioner & intake cam, while keeping the chain matched with the original marks you made btwn chain & sprockets. Need proper chain roller count btwn Ex & In cam teeth. Since now you have tensioner shoes installed, the prior lower chain slack will now be taken up & either the tensioner flexes to accomodate the now tighter lower chain, or one of the cams need to rotate. It's unlikely the Ex cam will turn because TB won't let it, so the In cam would need to turn. I think the tendency will be for the In cam to want to rotate CW looking from front. My logic here is that crank & both cams rotate CW (looking from front). Normally with tensioner shoes on & all parts timed properly, the Ex & In cams rotate CW together. TB drives the Ex cam, Ex cam drives the In cam via the lower tension portion of the chain. But if lower shoe is gone, then the lower chain temporarily effectively gets a little extra slack. So the Ex cam will rotate a bit more CW before it continues to rotate the In cam. So...when chain installed with shoes, the intake will need to rotate CW a bit more to catch up to the Ex cam. Tighten cam bearings in proper sequence. You might find some resistance since you will be compressing the lifters. Don't install valve cover. Then, back to square one & rotate crank by hand to really get TDC & recheck cam alignment marks.
Hopefully most of this makes sense & I didn't ramble too much.

indoor

What do you think of the idea to set TDC now, before he puts the intake cam back in? The valves on intake cam will not move which could be a good thing...also that intake cam is where it should be if all was lined up, right? But it will not line up when he sets TDC. Does it make sense?

SloopJohnB@mac.com

The brute force way is to remove the TB and the exhaust cam sprockets on both banks, then release both camshafts on both banks.

Put the engine at TDC using the locking pin, it should be the TDC where #5 is at TDC on the compression stroke IIRC (check your bentley).

At this point you can then reinstall the cams with chain and tensioner(compressed) in each head and bring them down into their camshaft bearing bores with their respective caps, counting chain links, yada yada yada and camshaft marks lining up with the camshaft bearing cap.

Then you put on the sprocket(s), line up the cams with the camshaft locking bar, tighten up the sprocket center bolt(s), and install the TB like a regular TB service. Remove crank locking pin, remove cam locking bar, rotate engine 2X clockwise and reinsert crank locking pin and check for wings on the camshafts lining up, if not, loosen sprocket center bolts, pop sprockets loose, use cam bar to line up sprockets, retighten, and do the 2X rotations again. If you did the correct number of chain links the timing marks on the cams should line up with the marks on the cam bearing caps (the exhaust cam will automatically line up if the camshaft locking bar is on…the intake can be problematic until the engine is started and oil pressure does it thing with the tensioners.

This is a lot of work compared to just winkling in the intake cam and sprocket with the compressed tensioner in between, but if the exhaust cam timing is hosed, the procedure is pretty much bulletproof.

On the other hand, it's a lot like the protocol associated with ebola treatment. The protocol is good, but if you fail the protocol you get infected. Of course, you don't die personally, but the engine dies with bent valves or piston damage.

Moe1354

I don't think the dealer went to the extent of checking if the cam shafts line up, they just opened the cover and noticed a broken top tensioner pad, the rest were assumptions in order to prep me for additional charges in case of ....

Moe1354

I will put the intake and the tensioner with the new shoes back in this weekend and check with you guys step by step in order to get it right.
Thanks again guys!

CRuby

The best approach for assuring proper timing is obviously the one SloopJohn outlined. But car is not in service position & I think OP's intent was to avoid it. Sounds like tools & experience may be an issue.

So, on to 2nd best approach. For this situation, I like Indoors suggestion of getting to real TDC with bank 1 intake cam currently removed. IIRC chain may not be removed from Ex cam due to clearance while Ex cam still installed. So chain may remain on Ex cam sprocket, but you may need an assistant to help support/turn it when turning crank to get TDC.
This can help several issues:
1) Be assured crank @ TDC, aligned w/ timing mark, #5 @ TDC compresion (repeating per SloopJohn's comment, as it's #3 for my 2.7 V6), crank lock pin engaged
2) Then OP can check position of Ex cam on both banks. Check alignment of Ex cam notches w/ arrows & eyeball that TB sprocket flange holes are horizontal. If aligned...great, making progress. If not, then TB likely jumped tooth & possible bad news.
3) Then install the Tensioner & intake cam with proper chain count.

Note that if OPs problem originated with tensioner shoe failure, then it's possible TB & cam chain did not jump a tooth. Far more unlikely for the chain. So it could just be that the chain was running rough on the metal tensioner feet & In cam was partially mistimed from the Ex cam, if my theory on the shoe taking up chain slack is correct, which I believe it is.
So, if you're lucky, no damage done, but either way, putting engine @ TDC can help start the diagnosis if TB jumped & it helps assure proper cam chain installation.

Although these are interference engines (pistons can hit valves, if severely mistimed), I have 1st hand knowledge (unfortunate learning pains) that there is some forgiveness on the intake timing for my 2.7L. Prior owner of my car switched tensioners (L-R to R-L). Since tensioner work differently for timing advance the intake cams on both banks were mis-timed, & thus my misfire issue. Before I noticed the switcheroo, I even changed the chain roller count by reducing 1 roller from the count. Didn't help misfire issue, but didn't hit valves either. I've since got chain roller counts correct & tensioners on the correct banks. No more misfires, & compression is good. So, point for you is: if the only thing that happened is tensioner shoe failure, then Ex cam timing never changed & In cam timing has some tolerance to mis-timing so maybe didn't hit any valves (Fingers crossed).

CRuby

Moe, while you have bank 1 intake cam off, take pics of how the notch aligns with the sprocket teeth.
For my 2.7, the notch aligns with the valley between teeth for bank 1.
For bank 2, the notch aligns not with the valley, but rather with a tooth.
So cam notch/tooth alignment is different between bank 1 & bank 2.

We'll see if your 4.2 is the same.

indoor

I'm pretty sure they did check. It takes some labour to pop the valve covers. It would be a waste not to look at the cams position. And actually the first logical step when you see broken shoes on tensioner is to check the timing of the camshafts. At least visually. They probably didn't have to turn the crank and saw what you have right now: intake cam lined up, but not exhaust cam...especially when you left the engine the way it was and started working...For all we know, that is what the dealer tech saw too(the car was towed so engine didn't move).

The dealer will rape your wallet, but they are fair at diagnosing problems.