72 Bavaria-timing chain help

My Haynes or Chilton does not mention a seperate procedure for JUST tightening the chain, but heres why I ask.

How much play should there be in my timing chain? I adjusted the valves yesterday and while rotating the crank pulley back and forth noticed what I think is an alarming amount of play in the difference between how much the pulleys move before the cam OR distributor rotor move. I have never noticed a noise from the chain but the car runs eratically, going from powerless to fine, or dieseling after shut off.

I know there are still carb sync issues and I have not timed it with a light yet, but assumed those were the causes until now.

If you have had your valve cover off and rotated the engine, maybe you can share your experience and help me out.

Cheers, Michael

First of all , alway turn engine in the direction that it normally turns, otherwise you will have play. Turn engine over twice in the right direction and check play= none.

Preface: This car sat a year or so and was in disrepair upon my purchase:

The reason I started to question the timing chain is that the idle flucuated wildly ranging from around 2500 to a stall. But the good news is that after adjusting valves, a static timing adjustment and basic choke and idle settings to the Webers, and adding 2 engine-to-frame grounds, the car runs pretty darn well. Today I was able to dial in the timing with ye'ole strobe light and am gonna leave it well enough alone.

The timing chain does not make noise nor are there any where marks inside the cover, so I am going to assume the slop I noticed was due to the lack of oil pressure in the adjuster.

Thanks for the replies.

Sweet car!