Limp Guide and Head Question?

[Titan]

Hello again,

It seems I'm at an endless barage of problems as of late.

I took my cam sprocket off today in preparation for taking the head off. Although, before I removed it, I noticed the upper driver-side guide was limp, making the chain quite limp. The thing is, I'm almost positive it was tight before I started to crank the engine to TDC via the crank pully. Is the guide pooched now? If so, it seems I can easily replace it with the head off? Any advice here would be a great help.

Also, how in the world did you guys separate your intake manifold from the head? I took off 5 bolts already, but I can't even see the rest, let alone get to any others. So I'm thinking of taking the head off with the intake manifold attached. Any thoughts here?

Here are some pics of the guide I am talking about. This is an SOHC motor btw.

[NISTECH]

that guide is the none tension side it is only a guide. I would need to see more of it to tell you if its bad or not. but those guides can and do break. That is the slack side of the chain perhaps you rotated the engine back wards and the chain became slack when the tensioner compressed. easiest way to R&R the cyl head is with the intake and exhuast manifold attached. [with a helper]

If you can get a flashlite down in there and snap another shot of the guide where the whole length of the guide can be seen. What happens to them starting at the lower portion they start coming apart till there is nothing left of them. The peices end up in the oil pan.

[quiksilvia]

when i replaced the head on my sr, my chain went limp while taking out the cams, but thats just cuz i didnt have the cams bolted down anymore so they had play, when i bolted it all back up, it was fine.