Originally Posted by David.X5

Funny. This is how I ended up with my X, too. Bought it with a badly rattling timing chain, pulled the engine and rebuilt everything related. Never ran it until after the rebuild. Mine had damage to the front cover, the guides were badly shredded but the chain had not broken. Lots of debris.... Clean the oil pump pickup very carefully - maybe even replace the oil pump. Pulled the heads and found no visible damage to the valves or cylinders, so cleaned it all up and put it back together. Been strong ever since. Just recently dropped the oil pan to replace the upper oil pan gasket which had started to leak after 2.5 years. My fault I guess... Did the Besian VANOS rebuild process at the same time. All new chains and guides and tensions of course. Reconditioned all my lifters while it was apart.