Dreaded Upper Cam Chain Guide Failure

[Great White]

Last time I did my yearly oil change (a couple months after the pandemic hit,) I discovered steel glitter in the oil. I parked the car, set it up for hibernation, and haven't driven it since (except two short drives to renew the registration )


Fast forward to now, I'm finally in a position to repair it. Without further ado, let's get into it.


The pictures below are of the passenger side upper chain guide backing plate, cam cover, and chain. I haven't removed the driver's side cam cover as of yet. My questions thus far are as follows:


Does anybody sell replacement backing plates?


If no, is the driver's side backing plate identical?


If no, does somebody have a print of one so I can get a head start on making one from scratch?


If no to all of the above, I can reverse engineer it from a new plastic guide myself, I was just looking for a faster, simpler solution.


Next question...


Does the chain look okay to you guys?


Last question:


What on earth do I do to gain access to all 4 of the nuts holding the brake booster to the firewall? I haven't found a combination of socket extensions that will allow me to get a grip on all 4 of them. Two of them are easy, but the other two are obscured by the steering column. I managed to remove the throttle pedal assembly to gain a little more room, but now I feel like that was an exercise in futility. I'm not as flexible as I used to be I guess.


Any help is appreciated. Can't wait to hang with you guys in May.

[WARP TEN]

Talk with Jerry at Jerry's Gaskets and Marc Haibeck at Haibeck Automotive. I am sure they can offer some good advice. --Bob.

[AndrewL]

Jerry sells the facings. https://www.jerrysgaskets.com/search...h_query=facing

I can't help with your other questions as I haven't done that job yet.