I have an A12 I bought in a sunny I got for a song.
I pulled everything off it, replaced all the gaskets, and appllied paint to a colour match to factory. (It looks smick too!)
I did notice the timing chain was quite worn while I had the timing cover off. Even though I have a chain in the shed with only 500kms on it, (catastrophic engine failure) I chose to leave it alone. (Along with not laping in the valves, or touching anything else)
The upside is, that the retarded cam timing created by the knackered chain means the engine will hapily rev all the way to valvebounce.
The downside is the idle isn't super smooth. (Although it it a very good starter) And the timing mark isn't uber stable on the timing light. As well as a bit of timing chain noise, that could almost be mistaken for bearing knock.

So it's got me thinking. Have any of you ever experienced a timing chain just give up, and make like a broken cambelt?
Probably not a likely thing. I've had A series motors that were so buggered they'd use an entire crankcase oil in only one tank of gas. But as I'm looking at needing to keep this car as a daily for a while, I can't afford for it to fvck out on me.