It was a dark and stormy night... that's the way all good mystery stories begin, so I'll use it, even though most of my chronicle occurs in broad daylight. I am going to give you the facts and see if you can figure out what the problem is.
A while back I had my Midget 1500 worked on to fix a bad clutch throwout bearing. While they had the engine out, I asked them to replace the front and rear engine oil seals and the oil pan gasket as well. The rear seal is accessible once the transmission is removed and the front seal is located inside the timing cover. After I got my car back, I noticed that it had a noise it did not have before it was "fixed". It was an intermittent clacking, jerking noise that came from the front of the engine and showed up mostly while the engine was idling. Also, it would not idle as smoothly as it had done previously. Just to make sure it wasn't something simple like a bad water pump or alternator bearing, I removed the fan belt and started the engine. The noise was still there. As another precaution, I removed the valve cover and adjusted the valves. Once again the noise was still there. I took the distributor out and checked it over, and finding nothing wrong, I replaced it. I noticed that while I was re-timing the engine, whenever the noise occurred I could feel a strong vibration with my hand on the distributor. This vibration was not as noticeable when my hand was touching other parts of the engine. Apparently the vibration was being transmitted through the camshaft. I also noticed that it was difficult to time the engine with my timing light, because whenever the noise occurred the engine timing would wander erratically over a three or four degree range. I donned my Sherlock Holmes cap and pipe and stood pondering the problem for about five minutes and suddenly said, "Why of course, it's obvious!" (plus a few other words I will not reprint here). I realized that I had a time consuming job ahead of me, but that with luck, it would not be too expensive.
Judging from the symptoms, I concluded that somehow during the process of replacing the front engine oil seals, the timing chain tensioner, located inside the timing cover, had either been incorrectly positioned or was lost altogether. As a result, the timing chain was loose and creating a noise as it slapped back and forth. The loose chain would account for the erratic timing as well. I removed the radiator, fan belt, and front engine mount bolts and raised the front of the engine about four inches. This allowed removal of the crankshaft pulley and the timing cover. Son of a gun... there it was! The chain tensioner was folded back along the curve of the timing cover, neatly out of the way and serving no useful purpose whatsoever.
Dismantling the front end of the car to get at the problem and then reassembling the mess again took this inexperienced mechanic about a week of spare time work, several nightmares and a couple of desparate phone calls. Actually fixing the problem (repositioning the chain tensioner) took five seconds! If there ever was an example of the value of doing something right the first time around, this was it. Moral number two: when somebody else works on your car, watch 'em like a hawk. Number three: if you can fix it yourself, do it.
Part of the week's work involved improving other details which became obvious and/or accessible while the front of the car was apart. Anytime you work on your car, take the opportunity to check out everything else you run into on your way into and out of the major problem. In my case, in addition to fixing the chain tensioner I replaced two radiator hoses and the fan belt, thoroughly cleaned and painted the radiator end tanks (not the radiator core-that just interferes with cooling), the coolant overflow tank, timing cover and water pump, and then carefully reassembled everything. For example, I found that the radiator had previously been installed with only six of the eight bolts intended for the job, and two of those were loose.
I now know more about my car than I did before, and feel more competent in working on it. I hope that this story will encourage you to dig into your own cars when the need arises.
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