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The tech who said it was the chain making the noise was probably right, but the chain can make noise because it is stretched or when it hits the hardened valve cover pad.
Removing the valve cover takes about 5 minutes and the pad is held in the cover by two tabs and it slides right out. If this pad is hard, as I suspect you should replace it. sobstory has them and you might consider a new set of valve cover seals just for the hell of it. When you put the valve cover back on don't over tighten the bolts. I think the spec is only 10 ftlbs. A torque wrench is not absolutely necessary if you can imagine a 10 lb pull on a 1 foot ratchet.
Checking the chain for stretch will take about 15 minutes. i assume you can find the opening in the top of the clutch cover for viewing the timing scale on the flywheel. the marks on the flywheel are jsut scribed in and are hard to see without a good flashlight. Rather than using the starter to bump the engine around, i prefer to pu the car in 5th gear and push the car until the marks are visible. Then use a crayon or some white-out to mark the zero degree line. When the zeroe degree line is lined up with the line scribed into the plastic clutch cover, you are either at TDC or 360 degrees off. You can tell which it is by looking at the cam lobes for the cylinder closest to the firewall. The flat/low spot on the cams should all be against the cam followers/lifters indicating that the valves are closed on the #1 cylinder. The top of the compression stroke on the #1 cyl is TDC.
Now look for the marks on the cam sprockets and see if they line up with the marks on the brackets. If they line up and the chain shows no visible distortion, i.e. stretched links, you should be OK.
To checkthe chain tensioner, I have always had to move the A/C compressor aside to get to the tensioner bolts. It can be removed to see how close you are to the 11mm limit for extension. However, I would not bother with this if the visual inspection of the chain is OK and the rubber pad is hard. I'll bet the pad is hard and a new one will fix the problem.
posted by 216.75.9...
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