[Doug In NC]

Subject: 05 CTS with the 3.6L with Approximately 70-75,000 Miles.
Complaint: Timing Chain Rattle, 2+ quarts oil consumption between 3,000 mile intervals using 10w30 syn (viscosity increased due to chain noise), Phantom Coolant Leak

The preliminary parts needs were met by RockAuto.com, additional parts were sourced from the dealer as well as Autozone. The timing chain set was from Autozone specifically and was reasonably priced compared to what one might expect to piece it all together at the dealer.

The cosmetic engine cover is removed here:

The air inlet assembly below is to be removed. The small hose shown on is the fresh air inlet for the PCV system. Basically, fresh, filtered air is led to the driver's side valve cover from this hose.

The fresh air tube continues to the back side of the valve cover.

It enters here, just below the vacuum line leading to the brake booster, and just behind the rear most coil.

One dirty air filter:

One dirty throttle body:

With the air cleaner assembly out of the way you can see the belts and work on removing the radiator fan module.

After the belts came off and the fans came out I moved on to the wiper cowl. I used a battery terminal puller to remove the passenger side arm and simply pressed firmly on the driver's side to release the arms from the wiper pivots.

The passenger side cowl is held in by some 8mm (I think) screws. Once removed you can pull the passenger side portion toward the front of the car as well as towards the driver's front fender in order to remove it.

The driver's side is held in by a 10mm nut screwed in to the left fender essentially.

 

[Doug In NC]

The wiper module comes out after you loosen the 10mm bolts and the electrical connector on the underside of the motor.

On the passenger side you can remove the other small portion under the wiper cowl that leads to the cabin air filter that's located in the passenger corner behind the battery.

With all of the wiper crap out of the way, the padding on the back side of the engine will come off by A) removing the 13mm nut or B) Ripping it all to pieces, I recommend just removing the nut for a clean repair job.

After that, move on to the PCV hoses that enter each side of the intake plenum. Spray them down with some wd40 or something to lubricate them as there is an o-ring that can be damaged otherwise.

You can use a flat screwdriver to pry it out but don't get too carried away. These are kind of long and you'll have to first remove the 10mm bolts that hold the PCV hose to the plenum. Excessive flexing of the PCV hoses on higher mileage cars can cause them to break. The engine bay temps and exposure to oil make convoluted tubing brittle over time.

The rear of the passenger valve cover is the other end of the PCV system. The hoses from the plenum lead to the back and join as one. From there it leads over to the valve cover and clips on to the PCV Orfice. It's a rather simple disconnect tool again providing that age and heat exposure aren't big factors for you.

 

[Doug In NC]

Remove the connectors on the back side of the intake plenum.

Basically, it looks like this:

With the plenum flipped over you can see that there's certainly a good bit of oil getting in to the intake tract:

The fuel injectors can be removed from the intake manifold (lower portion of "intake") but you should spray them down as well and also wiggle them around a bit to work in the lubricant. This aids removal but if you're planning on re-using your fuel injectors then it may spare them from damage as well.

The fuel line is held in place using a special type of clip that locks internally. You can buy the fuel line disconnect tool at most parts stores.

The intake manifold itself again shows signs of heavy soiling both from the dirty air filter as well as the engine oil it's been consuming. The cleaner areas are those being cleaned by the fuel injectors spray. Essentially... any fuel additive you put in your tank will only affect where the liquid fuel goes and won't work it's way any higher than the fuel injector spray itself.

Once removed, it's easy to clean the intake manifold using throttle plate cleaner.

The fuel injector rail and electrical sub-harness come off of the intake. Also, I replaced all of the fuel injector o-rings which can be picked up at autozone.

I'll post up more tomorrow, there's quite a lot I need to add.
Doug

 

[Doug In NC]

From under the car, you'll need to remove the "drip pan" and the right front wheel as well as the forward, lower portion of the fender liner. I couldn't find a drain for the radiator but the lower hose is easy enough to access now so I simply removed it.

Prior to removal though, I noticed some coolant and signs of old coolant leaking on to the lower hose and the framework. Come to find out the upper clamp was broken and partially missing. From the top you couldn't even notice it since it appeared to be in place:

A closer look at the upper radiator hose revealed that it too had a broken spring clamp:

I've dealt with a lot of spring clamps over the years but I've never seen two broken on the same car. This guy was lucky it was just a small coolant leak from time to time and not a hose being blown off going down the interstate.


With the antifreeze draining, I moved on to the power steering pulley. This was easy to remove using a kit made just for the job.

Once you assemble the tool over the snout of the pulley you'll use a 1 inch wrench (I think) and a 14mm socket on a breaker bar. The pulley is pressed on and so removal isn't going to allow for it to simply slide right off. With the right tools though, it's not a big deal.


Next was the crank pulley. Take a 3/4 inch socket on an impact gun and the crank bolt walks right out. Next you'll need a second puller kit. I'm using a Matco kit that is used for steering wheels and pulleys.

If you can't thread the kit bolts right in then you'll need to first clean the threads out with either a thread chaser/cleaner or a tap.

 

[Doug In NC]

A note about the water pump. If you pull it off BEFORE you pull out the crank pulley then you will drain more antifreeze from the block AND the pulley still being in place will prevent antifreeze from entering in through the front crank seal opening.

With the threads all cleaned out, I used three points with my puller kit and the tapered adapter to seat where the crank bolt used to be. DO NOT use just the end of the puller bolt, it will jam itself in to the crank.

With the puller assembled, you can use a gear wrench to remove the pulley most of the way. If you put a 20mm wrench on one of the camshafts (after the valve cover is removed of course) then you can keep the timing chain set from rotating in the event the pulley doesn't want to come off without a little fight.



After you've got the crank pulley off you can go after the alternator too (not in that order if you like). It's either a 15 or a 13mm socket and if you've got air tools... use the air ratchet and a short socket. A wrench will do the trick but it takes forever. A gearwrench head is too big unless you pull off the black shield on the alternator, I did not do so.

With the wheel off on the passenger side you can get to the lower two bolts that hold the alternator on. They're 15mm and I used a universal joint and a long extension to go between the brake lines and the frame.

One the alternator is loosened up then you'll need to roll it forward a little bit and remove the charging wire on the back side. It's a 10mm nut that holds it on and by this point you should already have the negative battery terminal disconnected. After the nut's off you should also disconnect the electrical connector as well. Bend the brake lines ever so gently towards the wheel well and then wiggle the alternator out. It will come out of there but you have to rotate it around until you get the magic angle.

With the alternator out, you'll need to remove the bracket for it which is mounted to the timing cover as well as the side of the block. The coolant tube also bolts to this in one spot, remove that bolt. The drive belt tensioners should also be off already as well as the idler pulley for the p/s belt.

 

[Doug In NC]

In order to remove the timing cover you'll also need to remove the valve covers which means pulling the coils out. Leave the spark plugs in until you're ready to rotate the crankshaft in later steps. This will keep debris from falling down in there.

I marked the variable valve timing solenoids so that I would put them back in the same spot. They all appeared to be the same but when in doubt...

The actuators/solenoids are pretty long and while you can leave them in and remove the cover, I did not because they extend in to the head a little ways and I didn't want to damage them with an excessive angle when removing the cover.


There are very fine screens on these guys, keep them clean and out of the way of the rest of your work. A clogged screen can lead to VVT failure..

I purchased 2 new seals for the solenoids but the design is different and it's not as crystal clear which way is the right way to install them. The old ones are shown below:

Extreme caution should be taken when removing the cover. After the bolts are all removed (including the one from the driver's side, top of the p/s pump bracket) the only thing holding the cover on is RTV. BUT... it's held on really good so don't try and pry the thing off from one spot alone. I used a long flat-blade screwdriver (some may refer to it more as a pry bar) and used the bolt of each camshaft to pry against the cover slowly and gently. I did NOT stay on one spot too long and as soon is it started to loosen in one place, I put a wedge in there and moved to another to keep prying.

Now... one thing to keep in mind is that antifreeze runs through the front cover and goes to the water pump. If you DID NOT remove the water pump then you can expect at LEAST 6 quarts of water to dump in to the timing chain area when you pull the cover off. What you can do is drain the antifreeze, pull the water pump and then elevate the rear of the car and continue to let it drain out of the pump opening. Once it's stopped, lower the rear, raise the front and proceed with cover removal.


With the cover removed you will see every where that the oil drains and possibly even some signs of coolant "seapage" as seen in the center/upper/right portion of this timing cover.

 

[Doug In NC]

THERE ARE NO TIMING MARKS TO BE USED FROM THESE PICTURES

Upon initial inspection of the secondary chains, it would appear as though there's little wrong. The teeth are still fairly straight cut, there aren't any teeth that are like pin-pointed, they just go in to the chain as you'd expect.

However, once you start looking at the primary chain you start to see the wear on the gears themselves.

All three of the gears that use the primary chain show markings that match the chain.


In addition to the gears, the tensioner:

and the guide:

All show signs of heavy wear. On the tensioner you even see small craters in addition to the wear marks. The wear marks are easy to see because of the shading differences. If you run your fingernail across them it will catch like a record.


Once the secondary chains are removed you can see the same wear markings on the guides:

Now, if you buy the kit from Autozone, it will NOT come with this guide here:

The dealer does have a listing for them but at the time of this posting, they were on back order and my dealer had 5 already on order for his techs/customers. I would recommend ordering this one as well because in the situation of the car I worked on... this guide has wear equal to most of the other guides.


The new kit comes with new tensioners that look like this if someone hasn't gone through the box and pulled the pins out for you.

In my situation, I had one or two pins removed and one gasket damaged (bent) when I bought it. The dealer carries new tensioner gaskets so check with them if you need new ones.

 

[Doug In NC]

If you have to reset the tensioners at any point, it's not hard. Twist and push in at the same time in order to collapse the spring and lock it in place.

From there you can insert the piston portion of the tensioner back in to the tensioner housing. You may encounter some hydraulic pressure resistance. Try twisting a little and rotating the hole thing around some to make the oil move which will let the piston go the rest of the way in. Once the tensioner is bottomed out, the pin STILL will not go in. You will need to press the piston in a little more and rotate a little more which will allow the flat to line up with the spot for the pin to slide in and hold it in place.

 

[ghettomike]

wow someones been doin some work... if you feel like doing my timing belt on my 03 come on by

 

[Doug In NC]

USE THESE PICTURES TO SET YOUR TIMING

Some pointers here. If you rotate the crank around until your camshaft markings are all up at the top then you will be in the ball park for setting your chains up later on. I STRONGLY recommend having someone help you when you remove the chains. Take a 20mm wrench on both of the camshafts and have your friend hold the cams in place when you release the tensioner. Depending on the angle of the wrench, if you hold it lightly the force of the camshaft rotating could send the wrench flying. Hold them firmly. Your face and your intake/exhaust valves are counting on you!! At the point where you're ready to install the new timing chains, the camshafts should all be at rest. Meaning... they have a little play in each direction and a cam lobe is not sitting ready to slam any valves shut/open. Use this play to help get the links lined up but don't rotate them too far. Also, the crank has a small amount of play to allow for link lining up too.

You will set the "Left" side chain, then the primary chain and then the "right" side chain last. This means you take them off in the reverse order.

This is the "LEFT BANK". This term is used as if you were sitting in the driver's seat looking towards the front of the car.

The two links will go directly above the "L" marked on the camshaft sprockets for the "Left Side of the car"


The chain will go behind the gear that is shared with the primary chain set. When you have your left bank timing chain properly aligned then the lower link can be seen through the small circle seen at the 9-10 o'clock position shown here:

Your primary chain will have yellow links on it, one of which will be placed to match the arrow.

The primary chain is then set in to place to match another yellow link (partially discolored in this picture) to match the mark on the other dual-geared pulley.

The crankshaft will line up with the third link shown here:

Once you have your primary chain in place you'll be ready to set the "right bank" secondary chain.

On the underside of the dual-geared pulley on the "Right" side of the car you'll see that at the 6 o'clock position there's a small marking.

That small marking is what you'll use to line the bottom of the chain to the gear. On the top you'll set it up to use the "Right" marks for the intake and exhaust as shown here:

 

[Doug In NC]

Thanks Mike but this was a "15 hour" job per Alldata. I was helping out a friend with this one and I'm afraid he used up all the Freebie time for the year. Plus... it's cold up thar.

 

[Doug In NC]

I probably should have mentioned already that if you remove the spark plugs then the engine will rotate easier. You will be able to determine if you're fighting cam lobes or trying to bend valves with them out. If you encounter too much resistance it's probably valves.

Double check and then triple check all of your timing marks. The angles I used for most of the pictures I've provided were done holding a camera down and shooting blindly. For every good picture you see,there's ten more that were out of focus or not aimed right. Point being... use a mirror and a flashlight and after you've triple checked everything, do it AGAIN!!

Once you're CERTAIN you have the timing lined up, remove the retaining pins in all of your tensioners and rotate the engine. Once you rotate it... things will never line up again unless you have the desire to spin the engine over by hand a few hundred times. So you can see the need to make so many checks. With the links lined up properly, rotate the crank pulley only, do NOT use the camshafts to rotate the engine. You will notice some clatter from the tensioners as the chain takes up slack or puts slack in. This is normal. What is NOT normal is if the chain jumps on a gear. Make sure you're watching for that. Also... use fresh engine oil at the least on all of your chains and guides. I used Permatex Engine Assembly lube. I recommend engine assembly lube as well because I honestly believe oil starvation caused this and other chain failures more so than bad chains/guides. Personal opinion though.

There's the box the toys came in anyways. In other threads I've seen that Cloyes was the provider. I never could cross reference a Cloyes part number nor find any reference to them making this kit. But I couldn't find anything that said they DIDN'T either. My kit came from Autozone.

With the timing cover cleaned up I went to prepping the valve covers. The spark plug tube seals did not come with the new valve cover gasket set however, new bolt grommets did. I went to the dealer for those, which they only had two in stock at the time.

The valve cover below is for the passenger side which has the PCV orfice in it. This orfice can be purchased new from the dealer but they may not have it in their local depot. It's less than $20.00 and I'll post up all my parts, pricing and sources later.

On the note of the PCV system... the valve cover design as well as the gasket and cylinder head design really make it look like it's hard for it to suck up any oil.

The underside of the orfice:

In the head:

The Orfice:

I mean... it would have to be a pretty gas-like vapor heavily laiden with oil because I just don't see how it would slosh or get spray right up in to the pcv orfice.

 

[Doug In NC]

The thermostat is part of the thermostat housing assembly. It's located on the back side of the engine and looked like a PITA to get to if everything was assembled. It also looked like it may have been leaking at some point so I replaced it while I was in there:

There's a 13mm?? bolt holding the water tube to the head, see the wrench? It's down from that:

I didn't get a new o-ring for the tube so I put a little Engine RTV on there from Mopar and that should work just fine.

The front crank seal looked a little beat up after spending some quality time with the Brake Cleaner. If you'll notice the outer lip is a little wavy, that's from the cleaner swelling up different portions of it:

In addition to leaking between the seal and the crankshaft, old oil can deposit between the seal and the housing it's seated in so make sure you clean it really well:

With the new cover on and bolted down, if you're ready to put on the valve covers then you'll need to put a little more sealer at the joint where the cover meets each head:

New valve cover gaskets in place, new intake gasket gets set in place as well:

Now, I didn't learn the hard way but I thought it was an option so before torquing down the two bolts that hold the lower intake to the head... I inserted all of the taller bolts that holds the upper intake to the lower. When you do this, it ensures that once you torque the two short bolts, you can remove the tall bolts and then set the upper half back in place at a later time without wondering if the bolts will line up.

Before you put the intake plenum on, leave yourself some room to work with the crank pulley and the rest of the drive belt stuff. I used this kit to install the crank pulley:

Now, the kit I used was borrowed but you can buy your own kit from Tooltopia.com for I think it's like... $60-70 and shipping is free if you spend more than $99. You will need a BIG wrench to "press" the crank pulley back on but I used a large adjustable wrench that covered like...1 & 5/16???

I know I'm missing some steps for ya'll but obviously... if you took the alternator off, it has to go back on. Same for the hoses and what not. Plus there's a few other threads out there and I plan on adding more stuff to this one through out the week. I've got the reciepts and prices to share as well as a few other tools I used. Adding antifreeze wasn't fun as it didn't want to gravity feed. I used a product called an "air lift" I think it was. You have to have an air compressor but you shouldn't be trying this job without one anyways.

G'night for now and I'll post more up later.
Doug

 

[TunixComplex]

Awesome right up and perfect pictures. This will help a ton of people for a long time to come thank you so much! You mentioned it being a 15 hour job I am shocked, something like this would take me a month if i even had the time and skill set.

I wish I had a fraction of the patience and skills needed for a rather large job like this. Keep up the good work!!!

 

[Doug In NC]

I was a bit surprised at the time, they didn't offer a direct labor time for the chains so you have to look at how much they pay to remove the timing cover. Under that labor operation they allow additional times for primary and secondary chain removal.

After having done this at home, on my own time, I actually look forward to doing one professionally at work because I know I can beat the clock and make some money at it. Because of that, my luck would go that one never lands in front of me.

It is possible to do the job in a weekend but you've got to make sure you have all the parts and the right tools on hand to do so. Once I get some more time I'll be able to list everything out and hopefully others will know what tools to buy/borrow/rent as well as which gaskets/seals/parts to buy in order to make that weekend job go smoothly.

 

[BlackCadillac91]

O.O ....I don't know whether to hug you or just shoot myself. I was hoping this would be a job I could do myself with a friend or two but now I'm thinking otherwise. I just don't have the money to get it done by a pro at the moment so i just have to pray the car stays together :/

Anyway this is an amazing write up and I'm extremely impressed that you took the time to write this up for us. If I ever do attempt to do this myself I will definitely use this write up. Regardless, thanks for the detail, I think I speak for everyone when I say this is GREATLY appreciated and long overdue

 

[briggy]

:yeah:


pretty freakin awesome dude. It's hard enough to do the job much less to stop and take pictures and do a write up. Very cool, hey which sealant did you use for the front cover ?

 

[Doug In NC]

The FIRST time I installed the timing cover I used Mopar Engine RTV, I can get the part number off the tube when I get home. The second time (after I PROPERLY set the timing) I used Victor Reinz sealant. I've had good luck with both and since the car runs dexcool I didn't want to run just any type of sealer.

When I was still at the Chrysler Dealer the guys at the training center were telling us that with the Chrysler 5 year antifreeze we couldn't use the older type of sealer. The "HOAT" coolant can break down certain sealers.

 

[briggy]

The FIRST time I installed the timing cover I used Mopar Engine RTV, I can get the part number off the tube when I get home. The second time (after I PROPERLY set the timing) I used Victor Reinz sealant. I've had good luck with both and since the car runs dexcool I didn't want to run just any type of sealer.

When I was still at the Chrysler Dealer the guys at the training center were telling us that with the Chrysler 5 year antifreeze we couldn't use the older type of sealer. The "HOAT" coolant can break down certain sealers.

I used the red hi-temp sealer (never listen to the parts guys) and I'm thinking I shoudl have used something else. Notice slight oil at one of the bolts. The stuff I love is the stuff I used on my motorcycle it's a suzuki brand sealer. The only things is I have no idea how this holds up againts the dexcool crap.

 

[Doug In NC]

The Victor Reinz part number is JV-8 and it's called "Bead N Seal".

I will note that I just finished the job Sunday night but I've not had a come-back related to the quality of either of the sealants I've listed. If anything had come back it was more of an over-torquing or gap in the sealant and not the sealer itself.

The Mopar Engine RTV is p/n 4883971 but I don't have a price on either.

The Caddy dealer wanted $20.00 for a tube of their stuff to which I kindly said no thank you. For the price it's worth it given the labor involved but I had known good sealer at home for free.