Plastic cam chain guide ....missing?

[Guest]

Last night I finally had the chance to start to reassemble my 1980 16v 1100E engine. Put the pistons back on , new circlips, base gasket, cylinders, head gasket, head, started to install the cams and went to put the tensioner in and started thinkin " That little round nub on the end of the tensioner surely cannot push against the chain....where is the plastic guide?"

http://www.cmsnl.com/suzuki-gs1100-e-1980-1981-usa_model15997/partslist/95897.html#results

Part # 3 appears to be in there as I look down the cam chain tunnel, but the # 7 guide is missing. The bolt that holds # 7 in I beleive goes into the lower case. "Are you kidding me?"!!!!!!
I have no recollection of ever removing this part, and carefully have stored my bits while I was off my project rebuild.
This bike was running when I tore it apart, Is it possible this thing would have run without the guide and not have made a huge noisy scraping racket? I sweat I never took that thing out!
The cylinder and head have no scrapes or gouges inside in the cam chain tunnel area on the intake cam side, if this thing was running with the guide not in place. Did I lose it? or did I get the bike without one? Crap.
I guess my question is "How interchangeable are these things?" I see a bunch on e bay and they all look the same.

[loud et]

Nevermind...... Found it

[hampshirehog]

Could have been fun running the engine without it!

[loud et]

Yeah, I found it in my other parts filing cabinet.....aka (giant workbench with everything piled up on it)
Anyways, did the teardown, installed chain guide, installed cams and did timing....oh yeah!
Went to adjust the valves, but to my surprise...they were spot on.
Sweet!