It was a normal morning; drove a couple miles from my house to train station. Started back up and drove a couple miles to a gas station. Car wouldn't start after the gas station. After a couple cranks, the starter was engaging but the engine wouldn't turn over. A couple (few) cranks later, the starter burned up.
Towed it home in neutral, yanked the started off and tried to jump start it. The wheels locked up when I popped the clutch.
Checked the oiled, but it was good. Operating temp was normal when I shut it off at the gas station.

Finally pulled the valve cover off (was avoiding it because I don't want it to be a catastrophic failure. Schrodinger's cat and all.
It was pretty obvious what happened once the valve cover was off; the timing chain guide failed and the engine ate the timing chain. It also sheared off the exhaust cam bolt.

Crossing my fingers that none of the valves got bent but as long as I can extract the bolt from the cam shaft, I'll gladly eat the cost of new valves as long as that is the worst of it.


Ate the timing chain and sheared the cam shaft bolt.

Don't yell at me about the condition of the head. I got the car used and drove it for less than six month before the timing chain guide failed.

Question to the group: If I'm going through the trouble of yanking the head off to make sure all the valves are straight, is there anything else (cheap) I should do while I'm in there?

I'm def going to look at cleaning the intake and valves while I have it apart. A nagging problem I'm going to be running down as well is why I have so much oil in my intake. I'm hoping it is as simple as replacing the valve cover gasket and PCV valve but am open to suggestions for other issues that could cause this.

As I was disassembling, I also noticed that there was a lot more oil in the back of the passenger side engine bay that I would like. Nothing obvious to say where it was coming from though. There is a burning oil smell, I assumed it had to do with the amount of oil I have in my intake though. Now I'm thinking it could be oil dripping onto the cat converter but I don't know from where that would be.

I unfortunately am not a mechanic and I didn't sleep at a Holiday Inn last night, so if I'm when off, feel free to let me know.

Thanks in advance for the help.