98 LeSabre 162k miles, replace timing chain?

[ziggy]

I was reading up on timing chains today! Fun stuff! 98 LeSabre.162,300 miles.
Checked out a 3800 forum and a GM forum. Most seems it's smart too have it looked at. Thiers a YouTube guy ,beard hillbilly looking talking about timing belts,chains last night I was watching. He said chains are no exception they do wear out . Start thinking about it 100-150k miles. But on the Buick forums, most saud they never had any issues with chains 250k to 300k. Bts tes those must be replaced 60-90k miles.
Should I start looking in this?

 

[dishdude]

Chains (especially a 3800) will make a ton of racket for tens of thousands of miles before they fail. I wouldn't give it a thought.

 

[Soft Cars]

My LeSabre has well over 200,000 miles. Never in my wildest dreams would I ever think I'd need a timing chain replacement. Those are supposed to last longer than the rest of the engine.

 

[Lubener]

Check the chain by using a breaker bar on the crank shaft nut. Rock it back and forth while observing the distributor rotor. You will be able to determine the slack in degrees as you observe the distributor rotor. To me, if it is less than five degrees, I would leave it alone which if the engine is running fine I would do.
I can respect taking good care of your engine but I think you are always looking and hoping for a problem to get into with your 25 year old Lesabre.

 

[Soft Cars]

^
I don't think a 1998 LeSabre has a rotating distributor.

 

[blufeb95]

The timing set wearing out is dependent on the design, and most of the cars I've ever seen with timing chain issues are OverHead Cam which have very long chains with more parts to fail, most OHV engines like the one in your buick will never wear out a chain since it's so short and simple.

 

[Lubener]

^
I don't think a 1998 LeSabre has a rotating distributor.

My wrong.

 

[PontiacHO]

When you hear it slapping you’ll know when. Otherwise keep driving.

 

[emmett442]

Not sure if of the later series 3800, but back in the day I replaced plenty of timing sets in these engines when they had the plastic coated cam gears, and when the plastic cam sensor magnet retainer fell off of the cam gear...

 

[Number_35]

Check the chain by using a breaker bar on the crank shaft nut. Rock it back and forth while observing the distributor rotor. You will be able to determine the slack in degrees as you observe the distributor rotor. To me, if it is less than five degrees, I would leave it alone which if the engine is running fine I would do.
I can respect taking good care of your engine but I think you are always looking and hoping for a problem to get into with your 25 year old Lesabre.

In my tune-up tech days, we could set the scope to stacked mode, which showed the individual ignition traces in one column, with #1 at the top, and #8 (assuming a V8) at the bottom.

Sometimes the individual traces were staggered, with beginning of each trace offset from the one above. Collectively, the leading edge of the traces formed a vertical sinusoid. (On a healthy engine, the leading edges would be aligned.)

Anyway, that was typical of a sloppy timing chain. When the engine was revved, the sinusoid straightened up as the slack came out of the chain.

 

[zzyzzx]

If it's anything like my 3400 chain, setup, don't worry about it.
I.E. - If your timing chain looks like this, then you probably never have to replace it:

However, if your timing chain looks like this, it's a wear item that needs to be replaced periodically:

 

[CorvairGeek]

Not sure if of the later series 3800, but back in the day I replaced plenty of timing sets in these engines when they had the plastic coated cam gears, and when the plastic cam sensor magnet retainer fell off of the cam gear...

The FWD 3.8 (and 3.0) V6 had the miserable nylon coated cam gear. This went away with all the improvements when it became a 3800 (and 3300) V6.
The tensioner does a pretty good job controller the slop/wear. You can't really tell anything rocking the crank back and forth because of it. My tensioner was compensating for 200K well maintained miles. Note this is the 3300 version, so the counterbalance shaft is not installed (above the cam gear). The tensioner is removed and the zip tie is taking up the wear. The replacement Cloyes set was the tightest, most precise set I have ever seen. It was actually quite difficult to 'walk on' being so short.
With that said, it seems most people never service the chain/gears on these series engines. I got a great deal on the timing chain set, and we were planning to put miles on the car (now at 260K). A bigger reason to service it might be if the timing cover is leaking. You can see the staining where the port on the right was running down the block. Never dripped though.