Apart from removing the harmonic balancer, I think the most tedious work on this project are:
- Getting that one water pump bolt out that is located behind one of the heater hose nipples. Either you get the nipple out (good luck!) or you have to save this bolt as the last one to remove and then you undo it with an open-end wrench half a turn at a time while pulling the water pump housing away from the block accordingly.
- Scraping off the remains of the old timing chain cover gasket. On a big block, part of the bottom sealing of the timing chain cover is the oil pan gasket. The new timing chain cover gasket set will most likely contain a piece to replace this front section of the oil pan gasket. Make sure you put sealant in there so the resulting gap will not not leak oil. Or pull the oil pan as well and replace the entire oil pan gasket after reinstalling the timing chain cover, which requires even more scraping away of old gasket remains.
If the heater hose nipple has been in there a long time, I say crush it, use a big extractor, remove it, chase out the 3/8" NPT threads w a good tap, and have a nice NEW heater hose nipple with teflon taped threads ready for reassembly! I have a relatively new pair of heater hose nipples, duly taped in my water pump housing, so their removal is trivially easy. PLAN ON DOING THIS.
Then you can remove the water pump housing bolt with your ratchet, just as easily as the others.
Get a nice brass wire cup brush wheel chucked into a good high speed drill, and use this to remove the old crap from the previous timing chain cover. I'm guessing several decades elapsed since the last time my 383 had one. It may well have been 5.5 decades in fact, though I think the Cloyes timing chain sprocket and chain may have been Mathilda's SECOND timing set, as there were NO plastic teeth to be seen. There was some of the original turquoise paint down by the oil pan though.
I used the bit of cork replacement for the oil pan gasket, and carefully removed the little bit of gasket between the pan and block immediately behind the TC cover until the replacement fit right. The high temp grey RTV did nicely to help this key piece stay put as I then applied the rest of the TC cover gasket on the nice shiny surface then bolted it on. Not a spot of oil has leaked since Christmas 2019, which was when I did this. Before, I lost a little down by the oil pan. I still lose a little oil here and there, but half a pint weekly isn't too bad when driving. I was about twice that before.
This job was so easy I saw little need to comment on it here. I say just get everything clean, be precise with the timing marks and location of your new sprocket, and be sure to get your damper on straight and all should be well. The FSM helps a good bit, as usual. God bless the souls of Old Mopar for producing those great manuals!
