Chrysler Repair: 2.7 L possible bent valves, nissan 300zx, crank shaft

Question
I am impressed with your thorough responses to other questions and hope you can help me.I am working on a friends 2001 Sebring w/2.7  v-6 in it and its timing chain broke.I already have the timing cover off and valve covers off and was wondering if there was a way to tell if the valves are bent without removing the heads.When the chain broke it did NOT damage the cam or crank sprockets(just the water pump and guides).The engine was trying to be started when the chain broke.This persons engine had no gunky oil in it and was very clean.I am going to replace the tensioner,guides,chain,crank seal and water pump for sure.The owner will have to keep this car for at least a few more years.I did this same job on a Nissan 300zx about 15 years ago but its heads were much easier to remove than this cars.Thanks for any info you can give me.

Answer
Hi Randy,
My thought would be to take a look at the positioning of the timing marks of the cam sprockets compared to oneanother, and if those seem approximately in synch compare their position to the position of the timing indentation on the crank shaft sprocket compared to its timing mark which is at about 4 o'clock, and count teeth from the mark to the indentation. Then count twice as many teeth rotation of the cams and see if they come up to about 12:00 o'clock which is where they are supposed to be (approx) when the crank is on its mark. Don't try turning any sprockets until you put on the chain and then you can turn the whole thing the way it is supposed to be turning. Then rotate the crank to its mark, and see how cam marks align to the chain links that are marked. I hope you have a good manual for the timing chain install. If not, let me know and I can xerox and postal mail it to you.
My thinking is that if you find a great discrepency between the two cam positions (they should be about the same rotation point) or between the two and the crank, then there is likely to have been some valve interference. Maybe a 1-2 tooth mismatch would be passable.
Roland

I am not familiar with whether there is any position of the valve train which avoids interference, but if so he might have been lucky if the chain happened to break at just such a point. In any case if it appears that the crank is significantly out of synch with the cams, then I would presume that interference still might not have occured if by chance the cams stopped at such a 'safe' position. In any case, probably the best approach would be to try rotating the engine and cams by hand at a two to one ratio of teeth movement until you get it back to the proper marks but listen/feel as you go for any resistance/interference to occur.
Please let me know how this works out for you. I haven't been asked about such a history heretofor.  Once you have the timing chain properly mounted you can do a compression test before you button it back up and see if the readings on all 6 cylinders are approximately equal.