That's no bueno. Stripping the chain could cause a ton of carnage in the engine. Bent valvestems, pushrods, collapsed lifters, etc... I wish you the best of luck! Let us know something soon!

 

Did you mean "stripped"? Or maybe was it slipped, skipped, tripped, or flipped?

 

Lol, SLIPPED, is what i meant, autocorrect just destroyed my engine

 

It is pretty rare for a timing chain to skip/slip. That engine must have had a ton of miles on it. I have never had one skip on a GM car, but I did have the timing chain skip a couple teeth on my '86 Jeep. Of course that rig had almost 200K on it and it was all original. Just was not worth it to me to fix.

 

156k, supposedly rebuilt 20k ago...

 

+1. It either was badly stretched or the gear teeth worn out. I believe I would find out who rebuilt that thing if you are the one that paid for the rebuild.

 

Why do you say "supposedly"?
Did you buy the car with the "rebuilt engine" already, or have the engine (supposedly) done yourself?
I spose it's possible for the chain problem to happen if that "rebuilt 20k ago" was actually an "I was just spoofing about the rebuilt engine" by the seller.

 

or perhaps it is one of those famous "freshened" engines

If the engine was actually "rebuilt" 20k miles ago then it was not done properly. Or, it was in fact "rebuilt" and those 20k miles took countless hours to reach and the car was sitting idling in traffic a lot thus having engine hours that vehicles which do mixed driving attain in 150k miles ( I'd prefer an hour meter on engines like in marine applications)

Or, you were simply misinformed about the engine

 

I say supposedly, just because that is what I was told by the previous owner. I have no documentation to support this claim, so it may or may not have been. Before the timing issue, it ran great, and Im hoping the same will be true after the repair.

 

Yea you should replace the chain