I miss my car... :(

[jbrasile]

Agreed,

A timing chain replacement is not such a huge job, probably easier than swapping engines. If the engine turns by hand and all of a sudden locks, it probably means a piston is touching an open valve, you may even get lucky and have no valve damage.

My suggestion would be to remove the head, have a professional examine the valves to determine they are ok, buy the necessary parts, chain, guides, gasket set, etc... and just do a regular timing chain replacement. I always recommend you do a complete valve job while the head is out but if you are on a tight budget you can get away with not doing it as long as everything looks all right.

Let us know how it goes.

Tks,

Joe

[1980sdga]

What Joe said!

Plenty of engines have lots of life left in them after a timing chain/belt failure.  It is possible that the chain jumped after a piston contacted a valve. Normally if a chain/belt breaks while going down the road the wheels still "drive" the engine and it trashes the valves.

Maybe yours jumped while cranking and it didn't hurt anything.  I'd at least pull the head and see what happened.

Once off if you can't see any obvious valve damage you can turn the head upside down on a bench and fill the combustion chamber with gas and see if it drains out.  If it doesn't leak past the valves I'd consider re-using the head as-is.  Maybe change the valve stem seals while you're in there.