Noisy chain sound after you put in new timing chain tensioner

If you change your reassembly order to put the tensioner in before the valve cover on, then you save a step here.

Release of the retaining clip can also be accomplished by turning the crankshaft slightly backward. Then as you turn it forward again, the tensioner should ratchet out.

 

Are we talking about the same cover here?

I meant only the valve cover.

 

Think I’ve got this right: backward and forward would be counterclockwise and clockwise respectively?

 

If you are on the right side of the car facing the crank pulley.

I tend to cheat and remember that 'forward' for the engine is the same rotation direction as the wheels when the car goes forward.

 

So if you want to turn the cams a little bit back to slacken the chain so the tensioner more easily goes in, you can have all the access you need for that with just the valve cover (the one on top) off.

So if you just use an assembly order where you put the tensioner in before putting the valve cover on, then if you find yourself wanting to wiggle the cams, they are right there for you to wiggle. Then you can put the valve cover on later.

 

I was going to include that, then thought nah, if you're turning the crankshaft, that would be understood. But yeah thanks, I've got to cement clockwise (normal direction of rotation) in my brain cells.

I usually harken back to the Gasket Masters video, where they demonstrate how to loosen the nut on the pulley by holding with a wrench while someone hits the start button, just for a moment: the nut wants to rotate clockwise, but the (wedged in position) wrench loosens it.

 

And I've known some FWD cars where the engine faces left, and has counterclockwise as its running direction. The "same direction as wheels driving forward" seems to largely hold up.

I guess someone could conceivably use a transmission that reverses the shaft rotation direction, but that doesn't seem to be common.

 

Yes. "Engine faces left" provides the simplest, most efficient way to harness a transverse engine rotating in the conventional clockwise direction through a conventional manual transmission. With helical gears on parallel shafts, direction of rotation reverses with each stage of gearing. Thus the transmission output shaft turns the opposite direction from the transmission input shaft (which rotates with the engine). In the second stage of gearing, the final drive ring gear (therefore wheels) rotates the opposite direction from the transmission output shaft, i.e., the same direction as the engine.

The Hondas (and maybe others?) with left-facing, counterclockwise engines use equally straightforward gear trains, just flipped around.

The circa 1980 Plymouth Champ (and identical Dodge Colt, both made for Chrysler by Mitsubishi), had left-facing clockwise engines, which required an additional stage of gearing to get the wheels turning the proper direction. They used that third stage to offer a novel (and confusing to some) 2-speed manual transmission in series with the conventional (for back then) 4-speed, yielding 4×2=8 overall ratios.

 

I think my mom had that. We liked Colts. My first car was composed of a '72 Colt wagon and a '74 hardtop, with some bits off a '75. It was RWD, with Mitsubishi's 4G32 engine.

Mom later had a '79, which did have the two-range deal, if I remember right. It was also my first exposure to an EGR system. Which would clog and need laborious reaming out every. time. you. turned. around.

She had an early '80s one too, later, but I wasn't around as much then and had little to do with it.

In every manual transmission I've been into, the input and output shafts shared the same axis, and turned the same way; the gears changed the rotation direction once from the input shaft to the (separate axis) countershaft, and again from the countershaft up to the different always-meshed gears on the output shaft. The highest non-1:1 gear (third, if a 4 speed) would be the one nearest the 'front' of the output shaft, and the third-fourth synchronizer would slide between locking that to the shaft, or just sliding forward and locking the output shaft to the input.

But I don't think I ever had a Mitsubishi FWD transaxle apart.