jimbo74

Well, this thread is stemmed off from my otehr engine problems thread... Lets start.. My timing chain guides are partially broken, OK i will replace them... here is where all the fun starts.. the stock yota plastic stuff sucks....

DOA Racing and LC Engineering both offer metal backed timing chain guides (left and right) for $80

www.engnbldr.com sells a dj rock metal backed drivers side only guide, but has gaskets, gears, and chain for $65 i beleive....

from my research, the guides are all the same qualiy wise....

LCE has 2 individual part numbers listed for the guides

DOA only has them as a pair.

EB only has the drivers side one

what should i do? i will have both metal ones..... i think i will try to contact lce and see if they will sell me jsut the pass side and get eb's kit.... opinions everyone?

i sent eb, lce, and doa emails, and only gotten responses from eb and doa.... EB said they dont sell a pass side as its not needed... doa says eb isnt good because it only has the drivers side and he has seen the pass side break as well, he also said he cant comment on lce

i have heard from fellow yotatechers here that the pass side one does break.. and i dont feel like doing half the job... i will not buy engine bldrs kit if i cannot get the passenger side one seperately from lce.....

kyle_22r

i haven't heard of the driver side guide breaking, however on my early engine it's steel as well.

look at the design though. the driver's side guide always has tension on it, the passenger side one has slack which slaps against the guide. also, the passenger side one is curved with less support from the nearest bolt(its a few inches below) which would make it more prone to breaking than the driver's guide, which is straight and has the bolt closer to the top.

i don't think it's anything to lose sleep over, EB's products are good stuff

jimbo74

i have no doubt EBs stuff is good, seems the same to LCE and DOA as i have heard all the revised ones are good... however, the passenger one from what yt'ers have said does break, and EBs stuff only comes with the straight guide... my current one the straight guide is actually what is broken now.... and i am afraid that the passenger one will break too... if i need to be in there replacing stuff i rather do it right. and make sure both sides are taken care of....

Yoda

The drivers side is the one that has the coolant passage. If that side breaks, the chain wears through the front cover, coolant dumps into oil.....milkshake. Yes, the pass side can break too, put not as catastrophic results.

It does seem silly to only do one side if you are all the way in there, though

PirateFins

I just put an EB kit in my truck. I have only had the drivers side ever break, and like Yoda said that is the one you want to stay intact. EB's kit came complete and I didn't expect to get all of the gaskets and such. Also i got his kit from one of his ebay auctions for $60 shipped. Had to wade thru all of his auctions to find the cheapest one. I can't comment on the other vendors, just thought I would put my $.02 in.

Phssthpok

This gets me to thinking:

Why not fabricate your own?

Or at least find a fabrication shop that will do it for you. I've never actually seen one of those guides in real life (though I'm sure I soon will), so I can't say for sure how thick the metal is, but judging from the few photos I've managed to find, it doesn't seem to be more than 1/8'' thick. (actually it looks more like 1/4", but there's talk of a rubber wear surface being applied so I assume that accounts for most of the thickness)

As long as you have and old guide handy for the shop to work off of, they should be able to whip one out in about, oh say... half an hour or so. (minus the wear surface of course)

Speaking of wear surfaces, is there any reason why a teflon surface would not be good to use in this application?

waskillywabbit

iTrader: (-1)

OEM, my OEM cover looked good after 167K, so I went with another OEM. I didn't see any reason to put the metal one in there if the OEM one was doing the job.

kyle_22r

your 20R has steel guides. the metal is about 1/8" thick i think.

and teflon isn't something you really want in your engine. the chain isn't really designed to "ride" on the guide surface, rather they're there to keep the chain in line in situations when there isn't much tension.

Phssthpok

Yeah, I went out and looked at the rebuilder I have. They're both steel. the only reason I asked about teflon is that it seems like it would be more durable than the rubber, as well as inducing less drag. Since I have access to all the materials and equipment needed to fabricate some guides where I work (including solid teflon) I was just wondering if it was something worth looking at.

**just for you Jimabena74**

Engnbldr timing kit (two steel guides) Buy it now for $64... Apparently he changed his mind about the passenger side.

jimbo74

wrong, that will not work on my truck, in 85 the designed changed... pre 85 they had both sides solid metal, 85 and later they had plastic guides... and engnbldr only sells the drivers side guide.....

Phssthpok

Ok.. bear with me as I'm a little fresh to this Toyota stuff but, is there a reasoon that an early timing set wouldn't fit a later block? I know about the different oil pump drive on certain years, etc., but are the mounting points the same for the tensioner and guides?

It seems to me that so long as the dimention from crank centerline to cam centerline is the same, and the mounting points for the tensioner/guides haven't changed location, then all timing sets should be swappable through all years (so long as you use all the appropriate matching components for that particular set)

pinemind

All,

Maybe I'm missing something, but the kit linked above in eBay says it includes:

". . . both steel backed and coated guiderails . . . "

Who is right here? Does ENGNBLDR's kit on eBay have driver and passenger side metal backed guides or just driver's side?

I'd like to know as I will be doing this soon on my '85 4Runner.

Justin

PirateFins

He sells both.

jimbo74

again WRONG!!!!

engnbldr does not sell both timing chain steel guides for 85 and later....

the other kit is for the dual chain that came with the 84 and earleir.. it is not the same!

to allow the dual chain on an 85 you need to buy the LCE kit or peice together basically a whole front half of the engine from an earlier year, including a new timing chain cover and assembly

Phssthpok

Ok.. so I looked up LCE's dual row conversion that you mentioned, and it's like I said...

Though I'm still confused as to why a new timing COVER is needed....unless it has something to do with the new oil pump set-up (Like I said.. I'm new to this Toyota stuff.) Either way it sounds like dual row is the way to go any way..

jimbo74

the single row is fine, unless you need the redundancy... the reason you need the new cover is because the double chain is like 2x as thik as regular chain and will not fit in the single chain housing

jimbo74

well... so i have received emails back from LCE, DOA, and Engnbldr

i basically asked why is your kit better than the other guys and why should i get your kit

LCE: Comprehensive information? Not sure what kind of information your are looking for. These are exactly as they are described, metal back guides. Both being metal back guides are better than one being a metal back guide. The weakness in your type of motor is that the exhaust manifold will crack, if it already hasn't and the single chain will stretch and the plastic guides break. The real way to make your motor bullet proof is to convert it to a double chain set up with metal back guides. If that is not in your budget, please consider doing both the metal back guides and replacing the single chain with a heavy duty one.

As far as why ours are better, I can't say I am familiar with theirs. I say this because we really don't regard them as competing with ours. We have be doing this for 17 years. We built 350 motors last year and used our metal back guides in a dual chain set up in every one. I can't say we sell many of the single metal back guides. We actually sell the dual timing chain conversion kit I mentioned above. We probably sell 3 to 5 sets of guides a week compared to 5 to 10 conversion kits(which come with metal back guides) a week. Just a much better, more durable set up.

Love to have you as a customer.

DOA: I do not make comments regarding L.C. Engineering. Engine builder sells DJ Rock product, and this kit uses a single guide upgrade, and leaves plastic in place for the curved unit. I have seen more than a fair share of the curved pieces break, and when they do it is far worse a result than when the driver side fails.

EngnBldr: *Morning!
Those are both very good companies, I don't know that ours is any better. The only function of the steel backed piece is to protect the timing cover from damage. Of course there is no reason to steel back the passenger side guiderail, there is no coolant jacket there to protect..

Our guide is a ready made piece to fit the engine, most others are supplying the 1975 to 1982 guiderails that are cut down to fit. At least they were the last time I checked. That also works fine, of course.

I machined down about three sets of those myself, got lazy, and just had them made new...*LOL**...

Thanks for the interest,
Ted(engnbldr)

myexcaliber2000

ok first off I noticed you said that 84 and older are steel guides which is wrong. I have and 84 that came with splastic guides stock. But that isnt my point. My point here is that the difference from the 84 and l8er and the 85 and up is they shortened the block. 84 and l8er had domed pistons which raised the block and made the timing chain 1 link bigger than the 85 and on. But as to if the guides are swapable the answer is yes cuz i have done it. I bought the wrong timing kit from 85 and the chain was short 1 link so i bought a new chain and used the 85 guides and it works just fine.

jimbo74

what i said was that the 84 and older have both steel guides available for the dual chain that was equipped on them. but engine builder only has the driver side steel guide for the single row 1985..

myexcaliber2000

what? mine is a jan 84 model and it only has a single chain. so what you are lookin at has to be an upgrade kit. Not arguing jus stating what i know. But as far as the swap it works just fine between all 22r years. the only thing that changes is the chain length.