Tore down the front end to replace a water pump and some failed gaskets and found some slack in the timing belt. Tensioner has failed, only thing stopping it from destroying the engine was metal on metal contact between the tensioner body and eccentric tensioner arm.

 

Looking at the positive side of this - sounds like you caught it just in time (pun intended)

 

Nice one!

In case anyone was wondering, that tensioner had approximately 77,000 miles on it.

 

Wow, JUST in time. Good catch. Really drives home that straying from the recomended interval could be devastating.

 

I wanted to replace everything when I dropped this new/used engine in. Alas, the cost of the engine was too great for my feeble wallet, and now I'm doing it all bit by bit. Makes for fun days, provided the weather is good.