2wd timing chain/oil pan?

[subzali]

So I've got a '91 2wd truck with the 22R-E and I'm trying to replace the timing chain (175,000). If anybody has done this or is familiar with the undercarriage of this truck, I could use some advice on getting the oil pan off.

I took the torsion bar off and the crossmember, but it looks like I'm going to have to remove all the steering rods (at least a significant number of them) in order to drop the pan low enough to clear the bottom end bearings and oil pickup. Problem is if I do that I'll have to replace all the TREs as well. I'm almost thinking it's going to be easier to just pull the engine

Any pointers to what else I can do or to places where I can ask people who may have a better chance of knowing what I'm talking about?

 

[Three Wheel Ben]

Flat rate trick - don't pull the oil pan, just pull the head. If I remember correctly (and its been a while) the 2wd are the easiest to deal with. If you leave the pan in you only have to reseal where the timing cover meets it.

hth

 

[subzali]

I was told to pull the pan because pieces from the guides can fall in the pan.

 

[subzali]

It was making noise (which could have also been my A/C belt which I found was missing a large portion even though I couldn't tell when I first looked at it - I thought I felt all the way around it and it was fine) and we had a mechanic look at it - supposedly pulled the valve cover and took pieces of the guides out of the rocker area. However it didn't really look like someone had actually had the valve cover off recently, and without really knowing what the guides actually look like from above it doesn't look like they are even broken.

I'm going to try and use a puller to take the TREs apart on the relay rod and then I can drop the pan straight down. I hope.

Thanks for the advice on the tensioner and from I've read Toyota is pretty much the way to go for all the other parts too, though some people have had luck with the metal-backed guides from I think enginebuilder.

 

[Three Wheel Ben]

Yea, you don't have to pull the head or the pan. The broken guide pieces in the pan aren't going to hurt anything. I have always pulled the head two reasons. 1) if we didn't and it came back leaking with a year we got to do it for free. 2) very good idea to check for electrolysis around the coolant passages, very common problem on 22re heads. Have seen it as early as 110k. Also you get a good look at the cyl walls. Have used engnbldr parts and highly recommend them. Only thing else I would use is Toyota.

 

[subzali]

Well I got the oil pan off, was able to get the pass. side of the relay rod pivot tie rod end to break free, and the amount that it dropped (while still connected to the furthest outboard tie rod) was enough to clear the sump and the bearings.

Just my driver side guide is cracked/broken, only the ear where the upper bolt goes through and one other piece broke off. Not sure if one of those was in the rockers, one of them was in the pan. Chain looks good, tensioner and gears look good, cover looks really good. So it looks like with a new chain, tensioner and plastic guides and gaskets I should be all set!

I didn't want to pull the head because my engine doesn't smoke, it's got good compression and power, no noises, it's clean, and plus I didn't want to have to pull all the intake and exhaust stuff off, since I was just here with my Cruiser about two months ago. Just didn't feel it was worth it at this time. So with any luck I should have it back together Wednesday afternoon or early Thursday, thanks guys!

And thanks too for the pics Dave, I don't know if you posted them in your rebuild thread but they are most educational! I'll post up some of mine when I get a chance.

 

[nakman]

Dave, that was awesome and most educational.. thanks for posting that.

edit: and well done Matt! almost there.. man there's nothing you won't take on..

 

[subzali]

Well I'm kinda lucky that I have 2 vehicles that I can kinda leapfrog working on. Hopefully after this the truck won't need any more work, however.

Dave, what was the approximate cost of your parts for the timing chain replacement? I'm getting about $380 for the chain, gears, guides, tensioner and gaskets. The chain is $150, cam gear is $30, crank gear is $50, tensioner is $65, guides are $26 and $20. Do these sound about right to everybody?

 

[Red_Chili]

I keep preaching the "replace the HG" sermon, so if this ain't what you wanna hear, change the channel...

But at 175K miles, with a somewhat unknown history of coolant condition, it seems to me that changing the HG is cheap insurance. I had a HG fail due to infrequent coolant service as far as I could tell, at 149K miles, and because it was a slow failure the block deck was eroded and I got to choose between a complete rebuild and a Jasper motor.

Also, regards the oil pan, my buddy pulled his in his rebuild. The PO had replaced the timing chain without pulling the head nor the pan, and the HG was nasty and weak around the fire rings, and the pan was full of tiny plastic gravel, some of which was in the oil pickup, blocking flow. His rebuild was due to a rod beginning to fail. Can't say if there was a connection. His block needed to be decked. Fewer miles than yours!

YMMV. Oh, and minitruck oil pans seal up real nice with FIP. Use Toyota Black (O2 rated, good with engine heat). And FWIW, my son HATES Felpro HGs, don't go cheap there.

 

[Red_Chili]

Thing is with mini trucks the prevailing attitude is cheap, cheap, cheap. This is quite a difference from Cruiser-dom, where the idea of price isn't as important as doing it right. So I guess that Toyota does not move a whole lot of timing parts and so the pricing reflects that. But it also means the price is the leader and finding good parts can be tough. They are out there, you just have to be careful.

Toyota also purchases their timing chain kits from others (mostly OSK IINM). They are all outsourced. Some mfgs. are better than others! Remind me to tell you about the dry timing belt idler pulleys I've bought from Toyota that failed in <5K miles sometime. Higher price does not translate to higher quality every time, though your point on doing it right is well taken.

Even Ted at Engnbldr, who is acknowledged to be /the/ source and doesn't sell crap has had problems with tensioners in the past. Stick with Toyota or OSK, nothing else.

FWIR Toyota & OSK have about the same failure rate (very soon after install, thankfully, but all that more of a pain), but you make a point.

About 5 years ago I would have added metal backed guides, but I've backed off that. I dunno if my experience is abnormal or not, but the number of plastic guides that have been in service compared to the very small minority of retrofitted metal backed guides seems to still favor the factory way in overall reliability.

You're not alone in that. My guess is that the 22RE startup rattle (before oil pressure builds) is the hardest thing on the plastic guides. I suppose that is the best case for the metal backed ones.

 

[SteveH]

Couple o' things - I used a 'Five-Star' brand tensioner in my 22RE and it failed to provide tension on startup after about 10K miles. Very disappointing. The entire timing kit was something like $55, instead of the $300 for Toyota parts, but I wouldn't do it again.

Also, my Toyota mechanic buddy warns me that head gaskets simply wear out or get weak around 180-200K, due to thermal cycling, and that's why it's a good idea to replace them with the timing chain. They may not fail outright at that mileage, but any other incident (such as mild overheating) can cause them to fail. I just did a Camry that suffered this and you sure see a lot of Toyotas for sale on Craigslist with 200K miles and a blown head gasket, or a blown engine because of it.

 

[Red_Chili]

I stand vindicated.












On HGs at least...

 

[subzali]

Wow, such a lovely discussion!

Let's put it this way: I am still 3 weeks away from a steady paycheck and my dad is in the middle of a barn-building project. But I don't want to completely slack. I plan on keeping the truck a long time. Along this vein our local mechanic (who's worked on many a 22R-E and RT-E etc.) sources his kits that say the parts are OEM and are labelled Tsubakimoto. It's $150 for the whole shabang, and I figure if he trusts it enough that part of his business is based on it (a redo of a timing chain is not a trivial thing to do because your parts were bad) I think we're going to go with it.

As far as the HG is concerned, at this point I'm pretty gunshy just because I have a lot of the engine apart as it is and have a lot of gaskets etc. to replace, again remember the budget. If something starts to happen with the HG even in a month or two it'll be fine because I can then afford to do it right and git 'er done then. Just right now to get the truck driving again it's not necessary. This truck was owned previously by two older gentlemen who had it dealer serviced, so not too worried about the coolant etc. It is good to know that I will probably be going back into this engine to do the HG soon but I am willing to do that as its own project later.

Unless you have to pull the timing chain to do the HG...oo actually I might have just convinced myself to go ahead and do it. If I do though the truck will have to sit that much longer. Hmmmm.

 

[Red_Chili]

Wow, such a lovely discussion!

Let's put it this way: I am still 3 weeks away from a steady paycheck and my dad is in the middle of a barn-building project. But I don't want to completely slack. I plan on keeping the truck a long time. Along this vein our local mechanic (who's worked on many a 22R-E and RT-E etc.) sources his kits that say the parts are OEM and are labelled Tsubakimoto. It's $150 for the whole shabang, and I figure if he trusts it enough that part of his business is based on it (a redo of a timing chain is not a trivial thing to do because your parts were bad) I think we're going to go with it.

kinda like the transmission kit I bought, not from Toyota. All the bearings were identical, including the brand and part number, but it cost $200 instead of $500 or something. Sounds like a plan.

As far as the HG is concerned, at this point I'm pretty gunshy just because I have a lot of the engine apart as it is and have a lot of gaskets etc. to replace, again remember the budget. If something starts to happen with the HG even in a month or two it'll be fine because I can then afford to do it right and git 'er done then. Just right now to get the truck driving again it's not necessary. This truck was owned previously by two older gentlemen who had it dealer serviced, so not too worried about the coolant etc. It is good to know that I will probably be going back into this engine to do the HG soon but I am willing to do that as its own project later.

Unless you have to pull the timing chain to do the HG...oo actually I might have just convinced myself to go ahead and do it. If I do though the truck will have to sit that much longer. Hmmmm.

You can hold up the chain reeeeeeal keerful like I think. Maybe. And hope it doesn't slip a tooth. Wouldn't be easy at all but I've not tried it.

 

[Red_Chili]

Doing it which way, Bill?

Sorry, I meant tearing the top end down only, and changing the headgasket without disturbing the timing chain or anything else. I guess it's not all that different.

 

[Red_Chili]

Guess not. And BTW I don't have all that much experience.
The easy way to pull the pan is just pull the motor ... like I'm doing now to a 1993 pickup. (rear main seal is seeping, I HATE HATE HATE oil leaks. Besides, it looks like the POs did something less than good work as I survey how things like gaskets & half moons, O2 sensor wiring, reverse light wire patching, etc. were installed... )

 

[subzali]

Just checking before I button it up too far...as long as the bright links align with the marks on the gears and nothing moved then it should be good to go right? The driver's side a *little* bit of slack, I don't know if it's supposed to be completely taught, I guess it is when the truck is running. Neither the cam nor the crank moved at all.

The reason I'm asking is because the instructions I'm following say to rotate the crank clockwise a little bit to get the cam gear on then rotate it back to preload the chain. I *think* I can do that if I slip it one more tooth on the crank gear, but then the bright link won't line up with the mark on the crank gear. But then of course the cam won't be exactly where it is now either, it will be slightly clockwise from where it is now.

Basically I'm just checking that it's okay for the driver's side to have a little slack, like it can move maybe 1/2" side to side.

 

[subzali]

The slackness I was mentioning was before putting the guides on FWIW. I understand what you're saying about how tight yours was, mine is pretty similar.

Cam doesn't spin very freely, but with the pulley on the crankshaft it's not too hard to spin by hand.

The chain has equal links between bright links right? I mean it doesn't matter which way the chain goes on, the bright links are always going to be on the gears at the dimples at the same time right?

 

[subzali]

I thought about it and it struck me that if it was different then as it rotated it would get out of sync with the hatch marks, which I don't think happens. Okay only a couple more ancillaries to go, took the day off today, and start it back up!