garyeshultz

Hey guys,

I've been searching yotatech for some time for a few solutions to some severe problems I've been having. I bought my '87 Toyota Pickup this August and its been all down hill. This is my first Yotatech post so bare with me.

I bought it running on two cylinders and got it fixed in the first day, turned out that rust from the tank had been sucked into two of the injectors and plugged them solid.

Then this month I started getting coolant in my oil and vice versa as well as a severe oil leak from the front end. I read on here that my timing chain most likely had worn though the timing chain case and so I should probably replace that seeing as I have no idea if it'd ever been done. So I ordered the parts through engnbldr.com, which almost worked out but they forgot half of my order and didn't send the front end sleeve and seal kit. Regardless, I replaced the timing chain, guides, tensioner, all the front end gaskets, water pump, oil pump and sleeved the harmonic balancer, used the front main seal that came with the oil pump and it is now running.

The oil leak, however, is now worse and seems to still be coming from the front end. In addition to that I am currently getting 10 maybe 12mpg. WTF is wrong with my truck, I'm very quickly running out of money and patience for my dream truck...please please help. It's on 31/10.5/15, I don't have a clue what it needs.

garyeshultz

Oh in addition to that, compression is 140psi across the board, it burns no oil and has just less than 240 000km.

Gamma_Hugo

Have you checked the bolts that connect the timing cover to the oil pan?? I had a pretty bad oil leak when i bought my 94 pickup 22RE. I thought it was some seal so I re-did the timing chain change. I thought it would fix the oil leak that appeared to be coming from the front cover. Did not work. Re did the timing job a month later and noticed that the head gasket was crumbled and not making a tight seal at the top of the timing cover. Check that out. If its beyond repair, trim it and make your own gasket for the timing cover at the top and make sure the bolt under the distributor gears is nice and tight.

garyeshultz

Thanks for the quick reply hugo. It was just this weekend actually that I did all that work to the front end. The leak is definitely lower on the motor than the head but I'll check anyway just to make sure, I also checked all the bolts on the oil pan when I was working on it but I'll check that again too.

It seems to leak more oil when it's cold, also the oil pressure is slightly higher during warm up, probably due to the oil being more viscous but is this normal? Can you think of anything that would cause abnormally high crankcase oil pressure, it has a brand new pcv valve... When the engine is warming up I can literally watch drops of oil form and drip from the front of the motor just below the oil pump/harmonic balancer.

Thanks again for any ideas.

cyborg-64

did you clean the surfaces between the pan and the timing cover and re seal when you did all the timing work? when you removed the timing cover, had the chain eaten through the wall already? how bad? if you are near western WA, i have a good block in the shop...

garyeshultz

I made sure there was no oil, grease or sealant/rtv left anywhere near the area but I left the head gasket and oil pan gasket that was showing. I wasn't sure whether or not to reseal the top and bottom with some heat proof make-a-gasket just because getting the timing cover back on was so tight given that I didn't remove the head. Like I said though, although there could be a small leak from there it seems to be coming from somewhere in the middle of the front of the motor, higher than the pan and lower than the head...

I wish I were close but I'm in Ottawa, Ontario...

garyeshultz

Oh and in reference to the chain eating through the case, it turned out that the person that had done the last chain had snapped the eyelets on the guides. So that the guide opposite to the tensioner was just floating around in there. The case was pretty worn but no holes. Turned out that the gasket around the water jacket inlet to the water pump had given up and thats where the oil and coolant were mixing...

I replaced the timing case gaskets, water pump gasket, oil pump o-ring, main seal and the distributer o-ring...

spokane.yota.man

If the leak is low on the front of the motor then its probably the front seal or oil pan. The seal wears a groove in your crank. As you probably know the sleeve and seal tries to cure that. A more popular method (imo) is to use the thinner front seal from a 95 22re. Then you don't seat it fully in the pump so it rides on a flat area. I'm currently doing a full rebuild and that is what I plan to do. My other guess is a bad seal on your oil pan. The fsm and general consensus is in order to do timing chain job right you should remove head and oil pan. It sounds like you reused your old cover but if you got a new one then it would need to be machined down to match the exact height of block. Good luck.

garyeshultz

I didn't take the head or oil pan off. I sleeved the crank pulley and used the main seal that came with the oil pump. I got a new timing case but when I installed it, sure it was snug but, it didn't seem to be so out of spec that it wouldn't fit...

Like I said above, everything is new and this is a reoccurring problem before and after the timing work, its just worse now. I changed from 5w30 to 10w30, with the new oil and all the new seals and gaskets I'm thinking oil pressure went up and now the leak is worse... Before and after the timing work when I pull in somewhere and let my truck sit there are 5+ drops of oil on the ground everytime and the entire front end linkage system is doused in oil.

If I have a blocked oil passage or vaccuum line, anything like that, can it cause an abnormally high oil pressure, so much so to force oil out the bottom?

cyborg-64

i think you should have cleaned all the RTV off the head and pan surfaces and re-sealed. hate to say it, but once you took those apart, any seal that was there was toast. i feel for you, i have been chasing oil leaks around my '84 for months. the motor is all sealed up now, but we've had a bunch of snow and i've been using the 4x4 on the roads, now i'm leaking gear oil from the t-case and the front pumpkin. almost ready to cliff it...

garyeshultz

Well that really sucks, I guess I'll just deal with the leak for now, until I get find a garage to work in. Both the head and pan have the old gasket still in place do I cut the gasket out where the cover goes or put new rtv over the old gasket?

spokane.yota.man

If your block has been decked in the past then the new timing cover is most likely too tall. To be done right a new timing cover should always be decked with the block so that they match. Even being a little off could result in a bad seal. If you can't find the leak then I think you'll need to remove head and pan and clean it all up good and try again. Really inspect the front seal too, just cause they're new parts doesn't mean everything is working perfect. Good luck.

cyborg-64

there are probably people around here who know far more than i do... but i would say that at the least you need to remove the old RTV from the gasket and if the gasket still is in good enough shape after, re seal it. i suspect your gasket may not abide the scraping very well...
graphite head gasket=if it's shot to hell, cut it out and RTV...
cork oil pan gasket= get another opinion, but i lean toward cut it out and reseal... or just ditch the cork altogether and reseal pan with toyota FIPG... wish i could snap my fingers and make all yota's like new again...

idk, maybe you lucked out and this is not even the source of your leak. could it be your oil pump? did you torque the oil pump right? the top oil pump bolt gets a dab of RTV as per the repair manual... did you do this when you installed your new pump?

garyeshultz

˟˟˟˟˟ that could be it, I didn't read any such thing, that would explain the location of the leak... The pan and head gaskets looked great when I put it back together and I definitely torque everything down. Could that bolt/bolt hole create a leak that bad, that quickly you think. I mean I lost about a litre of oil in 200km or a quart in 150miles...

cyborg-64

good place to start... check the manual, the top bolt needs to be sealed with RTV. hanyes manual 2A-13, figure 18.17

as for if this could leak this much oil... i do not know. hope this is your fix, tho...

garyeshultz

Update - Thanks for everything guys, I pulled the oil pump off and found that the gasket had gotten caught in the outer ring gear. I had a spare from the timing work so I put a new one in and voila no leak. As for the gas consumption I checked my tps which was way out of adjustment so lets hope that fixes everything.