What a day. Nothing went wrong. Didn't break or strip anything. I replaced everything in there. The serpentine tensioner idler too. It has never run so smooth. All this time, these many months with a raggedy idle and a pile of parts later. I wish I'd have confronted this a long time ago. I never suspected incorrect timing. The last "wrench" didn't set the upper and lower timing belt tensioners correctly, allowing the marks to move. But It still has a service engine wrench symbol. There is nothing left to service, that I know of. Maybe the vapor system is throwing this MIL. I commute about 80 miles a day and am hesitant to put this back on the highway until I run it around town some and recheck OBD codes. It set me down on the side of the road a week ago. Anyway, a great day under the hood. That Chinese knockoff cam and crank lock kit was the absolute trick.

 

The service wrench light is not emission related so it might be a transmission issue. Drive it and see what comes back. The wrench light on my first wagon came on when the transmission went into hard shifts. It reset with the key cycle and shifted well again.
I can look up all the reasons for the wrench light if it will help. A code reader will not read the wrench light, you need an actual scanner of some kind.

 

Deleted all codes. Drove it around town and got all but two OBD's back up to readiness. Evap and EGR. No new codes. I live in a non emissions agricultural county in
Eastern NC. MIL's don't fail an inspection here. The dash can be lit like a Christmas Tree and if it passes a basic safety, it passes. Yeah I know. How fortunate. It acts like a new car. No PO 300, none of those weird codes it threw last time. This light has gone out in the past after a fill up. I'm going to fill it tomorrow. I am so relieved it runs so well. I got it from Mom in bad shape. It has never run right for me. After seeing the position of the hex fittings on the upper and lower timing belt pulleys I have come to believe the last guy in there didn't torque the keeper bolt in the middle to spec. They go at a stiff 30 ft lbs. The tensioner itself keeper bolt goes at 15 ft lbs. They're only about 5/16 in diameter. Those hex fittings are used to fine tune belt position and in turn cam position. By rotating out of position, timing would be affected. What a learning curve. I never ever suspected shifted timing. I have some other work to do now. Some switches aren't working anymore. Cruise set was intermittent, I'll take it apart and clean the contacts. Electric mirrors have never worked, That's really not an issue cuz I'm the only driver and they are set for me. Driver side electric seat quit doing anything. An inconvenience, but not an issue. The seat is set for me. Suspension is needing some TLC. But man... it runs like it was designed to. I caught myself speeding in town with only a touch of throttle. I'll take that for now. Once day I was ordering OE parts from a dealer and a tech commented "Those 3.0;s are almost bullet proof". I hope to test his opinion with tens of thousands more miles. Unreal compression on this one. Makes me question my compression gauge. I read 195 to 210 across the board. Anyway, happy shade tree in Eastern NC.

 

Wonderful! My first LW300 was a p.o.s. It ran fine with the egr unplugged but the car was a wreck. I have had 6 or 7 L200s, bought not running, fixed a few kept a couple. My grand daughter has one and a grandson is going to drive my stick shift. I bought a creampuff LW300 not running a couple years ago and it had a bad ecm. Got it running and did all the maintenance. It is a great car and has just 110k on it now. Probably my last car, only going to work another year before retirement.
Glad you are starting to get yours sorted out!

 

Looks like I spoke a little too soon. I believed it dying on me was related to the screwed up timing. Not the case. Some weird symptoms. The four times it has suddenly cut off have all been on decel from highway speed. Then I get a crank no start. After about 10 minutes of letting it sit, it'll start and run fine, with codes set. The last time I eased it home at under 45 and it didn't quit again. Once home, the reader showed It set a hard code po 727 again. Loss of engine speed input. And set po 1810 pending, po 136 pending po 335 pending. After looking up codes in my Hanes, what is starting to make a little sense is the CKP code of 335. That's where I'll start. I'll keep you posted after I get that installed.

 

335 is the deal killer, it will not run without the crank position sensor. Even with a valid cam sensor it will not run. 1810 is a transmission fluid pressure range code, 727 is the transmission loosing the crank position signal. The 136 is an O2 sensor code.
you are on the right track with the ckp sensor.

 

Got some time between rain showers. The whole area around the oil filter adapter was soaked in oil. The ckp was soaked. I have a new Bosch on hand. I thought maybe the filter cover oring had failed. Still not sure about that. #1 Can the ckp o-ring seal fail? #2 Can the ckp itself rupture, allowing oil blow by? #3 Can the gasket mating the adapter housing to the block fail? Yep. Sure can. (Hindsight-edited) My wife has a Kia Optima that had a failed oil pressure sending unit. It puked, letting oil soak the sending unit. I'm trying to understand how that area got soaked. Thanks, Kevin
EDITED- Why is it struggling to pull itself up a set of car ramps? Will it run on three ?
This ought to be worth a laugh. To get some clearance to disconnect the CKP connector, I took the front plenum off, (again, for the umpteenth time) and disconnected the front bank coil pack. Took care of the CKP install, put it back together, and started it. It ran rough as could be. Kinda like when the timing was off. Threw a po 300 and an O2 code. I was sick. What the heck could I have done to make it run this bad? It was running great, except for the cutting off thing. Went to the parts house to order an oil filter adapter gasket, cuz that is where it's leaking. On the way back, a light came on. I had forgot to hook the front coil pack back up. Got home, reconnected that coil pack, smooth as can be again. Shows to go ya. Ya just never know. This time I was in a hurry to get it started and check codes again. I'm usually so careful about checking for stupid stuff.
Later---After getting the filter adapter off-12mm inside hex bolt, viewable with a mirror, the OE o-ring is collapsed, hard and brittle, Flexing it between my fingers broke it. Maybe I'm finally at the bottom of the pile. I'd have thrown in the towel a long time ago if the compression wasn't so good. The body is in great shape too, considering age. Factory gold paint with some clear coat flaking. Mom's car may get a new lease on life after all.

 

Probably final update. This has been a journey. The oil soaked ckp was killing the car. Caused by the oil filter adapter o-ring leaking onto the ckp. Probably for quite a while. I thought the oil under there was coming from the front bank valve cover. I replaced that months ago. It took the car dying unexpectedly to get me to look at the timing marks. I'd been putting that off, hearing about what a female dog it was to get the timing right. Timing was off, causing the poor performance. Spent a chunk replacing everything behind the shroud. All of it. So that fixed how badly it was running. Finally. It was still dying without notice. Codes led in the direction of ckp. Once I found where that was located, right next to oil filter adapter, another process started. Fix what killed the ckp. Got that ironed out. After a week of commuting 90 miles round, it runs like a new car. My Opel in an American designed shell. I've done a lot or reading on this engine and frame. GM's fling with Opel, German engineers and a British assembly plant. The more I know, the more I like it. It should provide years of service now. It's only got 100k on the clock. Now on to other details. New headliner, electric mirrors don't work, trans filter, brake fluid flush, wavering lights at idle, (alternator?) stuff like that. Thanks to those who participated, O2 LW300, Rubehayseed.

 

Glad to hear that you seem to have it sorted out and are liking it. That's great news.

 

The lights waver on all my L series cars.