I haven't taken anything apart on cylinder head or to access chain. It was like that when I removed valve cover and chain guide to inspect. Probably bad tensioner right? Car won't start. Trying to figure out why.

 

Tensioner takes up slack between the cam gear and the crank gear, with slack between the cam gears check the vanos.

 

How's the flats on the opposite end of the chain?
Are they straight up and down with the crank pin in ?
The tensioner should be pushing on the chain.
In theory pulling counter clockwise on the intake cam taking the slack out. Or pulling on the exhaust cam clockwise.
When I did mine,
Installed crank pin
Crank bolt, bolt cam bolts were loose
Turned the cam to correct position and installed the cam alignment tools.
Installed the tensioner
Tightened crank bolt and cam bolts.
That slack you have I didn't have.
You need to get those tools. Trying it any other way is gonna cost you time and some major headaches. Once you get them your gonna think I should have gotten then first off.
Either that motor jumped teeth or the VANOS is messed up. Either way you need the cam tools.

 

PM'd

 

Did you solve this mystery? I am in a similar situation... just seeing what you came up with.

 

Not solved. I haven't done anything to my timing chain. It was already like that. I think tensioner went bad again. Waiting for other responses.

 

Not good. Nor the sounding like a buckets of bolts rattling around. A boroscope comes in handy for peeking in the cylinders and looking at valves. Also when your looking for that bolt you dropped that magically vanished into thin air. Some models have a smaller head that fits thru the spark plug hole with room to spare. Look for one that includes a 90° adapter to let you examine valve movement while someone turns the engine by hand with a ratchet. Hopefully there's no holes in the pistons or bent valves.

This one might be an option.
http://m.harborfreight.com/high-reso...der-60695.html

 

+1 for tigger