Broken timing chain

[wfxt]

Hi, all.

Long time lurker here and I have found you all to be very helpful.

Apparently, at around 135K miles, my engine’s timing chain and guides have broken upon starting the engine after I put it away sounding fine.

The mechanic advised they would have the pull the entire engine out of the bay in order to address it.

I suppose my question is what you think parts and labor for this engine would cost to get that done. I tend to trust this mechanic generally, but I’d feel better if I had a sense from you all as to the rough order of magnitude for such a repair.

 

[franklin2]

Labor is high, and in NY it's probably higher than most areas. You may need to figure out what the truck is worth and if it's worth fixing if you have to pay someone else to work on it. Yes, I think the cost is going to approach the value of the truck. Usually vehicles up there are also eat up with rust. How does yours look underneath?

 

[rubydist]

To be a bit more specific, yes you do need to pull the engine to replace timing chains. r&r engine is likely around 10 hours, and replacing the timing chains on this engine is no picnic, probably 5-6 more hours. Doing this requires some specific tools that are not cheap to buy or rent. Cost of parts will be several hundred dollars and labor at let's say 15 hours at somewhere north of $100 per hour will bring your cost to the $2-4k+ range, and that does not include any other items that he will suggest to replace since you have the engine out.

 

[gw33gp]

The cost of OEM parts for the cam timing system was around $1,000 when I did it a couple years ago. I spent a lot of time finding the least expensive source. I did most of the work myself at my brother's shop. He had all the tools for the work including the timing tools. I also did some other work while I had the engine out and tied up one of his bays with a lift for a week. I gave him $1,000 for the use of his shop, tools and labor.

If you have a shop do it for you, I think $3-5K would cover it depending on where it is done. Make sure whoever does it as done it before successfully and knows what they are doing. It is easy to screw up this job when not knowing what to do. I certainly learned a lot while doing it, but it was done right.

 

[franklin2]

I just did a rough KBB estimate and private party value was 4-7K.