It'd be unusual, as timing chains on the Falcon OHC 6 give very little
trouble generally. It's more likely to be the tensioner not working properly
for some reason.

The car hasn't recently had work done like a head gasket repair, has it?

--
Regards,
Noddy.

Hi;
        I agrre with Noddy, EA had a bit of a problem with teh tensioner, i
found adjusting it 2 or 3 times after havin gthe head off and i had to
replace the botton rubber and the off arm tesioner, and failed to adjust
properly, thus s dingling noise at low revs and would fade at high revs. SO
mate, re check the tension. Hope this works.

Peter

Hi Steve,
I just had a similar problem (sounded like a bucket of bolts) but thought it
was the belt tensioner or idler pulley.  I removed the belt to check & found
it was the water pump.  Replaced the water pump and all is OK now.  I also
took the opportunity to remove and reverse flush the radiator (and did some
sh.t come out of it). All good now.
Good Luck. Mick.

I found the cam chain was slapping at low revs, so i re adjusted the bolt
thingy on the side of the motor, had to do it several times till the
slapping stopped. Before i did this  the arm on the bottom of the timing
cover had snapped and had to be replaced, also the rubber between the block
and the timing cover, and when i put it back, i didnt assemble the cam
properly which caused more  noise, so once i did it correctly  away went the
noise.

Peter

had a similar nois in my ea just before i deid a head gasket, started to
pull everything apart to get the head off and found that the "upper fixed
timing chain damper" had snaped as is only a pice of plastic ($14)