Thread: Td5 Timing Chain Guide Failure

Starting a new thread to post details on the beginnings of a timing chain guide failure on my 2002 Td5 D2 with the 15P EU3 motor.

As posted on the D2 forum, in completing my 480,000 km service I found some small plastic bits on the oil drain plug. A quick post on the D2 forum to see if anyone recognised what these could be from, led to Sierrafery identifying these as coming from the timing chain guides. Thank you Sierrafery.

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/discovery-...ect-found.html

Now as you can imagine at 480,000 kms starting a partial strip down and rebuild is no doubt the beginning of a potentially expensive journey. One which I am not yet committed to starting.

So today I removed the rocker cover to get a better view of what may be happening. What I found is on the drivers side the top section of the guide has broken off the backing metal. Now whilst difficult to get a good photo from the top, I was able to capture an image of what it looks like when the top breaks off. I have also included a picture of the passenger side which is still intact (you can see the outer edge of the guide in the photo). Something those of you with high km Td5's may want to consider inspecting.

The following post has some good pictures of what the timing chain guides should look like:

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/projects-t...d5-engine.html

So my question to you all today - has anyone had experience with the timing chain guides failing? Has anyone found similar pieces in your oil but not done anything about this? Has anyone pro-actively replaced their timing chain? As you can see from the photo's it is easy to inspect if you remove the rocker cover.

Will I repair, rebuild, or continue to push my luck...hmmm....the story is to be continued....

Mine is early 10P engine