How tight should a timing chain be?

[Minuit]

Little bit late to be asking this, but what the hell. Early this year I put a brand new Cloyes timing set on my engine. The old timing chain was definitely toast - I could flick it around with my finger and hear it slap around. The new timing chain was an improvement but still a little loose, but I ran it anyway. About 3,000 miles later now and I can hear a familiar rattle starting back up and my engine sounds quite a bit like a diesel especially at the front of the engine - even more than it did before. Am I right to be suspecting that my brand new timing set is wearing out already? The engine is running very well and it sounds fine under any amount of throttle. Just sounds like a rattletrap at idle.

 

This video does a good job of showing what's going on, not mine obviously:

 

 

My own video - Like the one above mine depends on how warm the engine is. Before I made this video I drove it around the block a little bit and when I stopped it sounded like this:

 

 

 

Thanks much.

[Wiggilez]

You did a tdi swap and didn't tell us :(

 

Jk unfortunately I'm not knowledgeable enough to help you. Hopefully someone who is can help :P

[Alexia]

Did you replace the plastic chain guide at the same time? It might have broken after putting the cover back on.

 

I am finishing up rebuilding the top side of my LJ's engine for excessive valve noise right now. I replaced the timing chain last year and that soothed the noise for a while.

 

[Minuit]

The guide looked good when I had the engine opened up so I didn't replace it.

 

It's running great and sounds like butter anytime it's not idling (even the ticking noise heard in the video goes away which makes me think it's related somehow) - this is just at idle. I just don't want the chain to break or jump a tooth before I get another chance to work on it. I've looked at some other videos of 4.0/258 timing chain replacements and theirs are much tighter than mine was. Mine was only a slight improvement over the (very loose) old one, so I'm thinking even more now that mine was defective (or I just suck)

[75sv1]

Its been a while since I did a timing chain. As I remember, with the chain tensioned on one side, ie rotate assembly to have the slack on one side and without a tensioner, there should be no more than 1/2 inch side to side. Or is it 1/4 inch. Less is better though. There will be some.