slimbobaggins

For those that haven't seen my other post, overhauling my 22R.

Installed the timing chain, guides, tensioner, and front cover/ accessories. Left the sprocket sitting on the guides.

Bolted the head on today and torqued it down good. Got the sprocket on the cam snout by compressing the tensioner with a socket extension, and now that it's on there, I can clearly see the chain touching the DS guide in several spots, including the top. It is also touching the PS guide in the "arc" that it makes, coming off of the tensioner.

I assume it's supposed to touch on the passenger side, but touching on the driver's side doesn't seem correct to me... I don't see how it's not going to just rub grooves into it and break it.

The kicker is that the back of the DS tensioner is nearly touching the side wall of the front cover... so even if I loosen the bolts to try and push it over, I'm not sure realistically if I'll even be able to move the guide over enough to get clearance between it and the chain.

Front cover is factory, the gears, guides, and chain are all EB.

Suggestions, before I ruin my gaskets putting the front cover off? I'm pretty pissed because it took me a while to muscle the cam sprocket onto the cam, and it would have been much easier had I not had the front cover on... I put the front cover on because that the "right" way to do it. Not to mention the head gasket is now partially glued to the front cover where those two spots of sealant are.

I could try to just loosen the two bolts holding the guide without removing the cover, but they're loctited in place, and then I'd have to deal with not being able to re-loctite/torque them.

Thanks for any advice/ opinions. Was looking forward to buttoning up the longblock tonight and starting the carb rebuild... of course this is screwing it all up now.

slimbobaggins

Alright... well, no replies so far telling me not to mess with it, that it's fine, so I guess I'm going to start pulling the front cover... it's not going to fix itself.

Sure as hell I don't tear up my new head gasket in the process.

I'm still at odds as to whether or not I'll even be able to shift the guide over enough to have clearance, and still be able to get the cover back on.

FGZ

I'm pretty sure mine was touching too. Just finished it about a month ago but I don't have any close ups of that area. I'm going to have the valve cover off again for a valve adjustment sometime soon, but again I don't have the cover off at the moment for a pic.


Slow yourself down a bit, a 5 minute phone call to engnbldr will answer your question without tearing things down.

slimbobaggins

Good point. Not going to call this late at night, but he's pretty on top of emails, I'll shoot him one and see what he says.

rustypigeon

I can tell you that my guide is the same way. I had the same concerns you did that the chain would rub into the rubber. I decided to monitor the guide over time by pulling the valve cover about every 15000 miles. The chain has worn slighly into the rubber but it has not caused any issues. I put my chain and guides in at 128,000. I have 196,000 miles on it now.

When i put the guides in i made sure that the guide was pulled as far from the chain as I could before tightening the bolts, and it still pushed into the chain.

I think I might have taken pictures of mine last time I had the cover off. I will look and see if I can find them in the morning.

slimbobaggins

Thanks for the responses guys. I also just sent the picture to engnbldr, so I'll post his response if he sends one, just for future reference to anyone else.

I know everyone loves this 22R engine, but honestly I find it to have more quirks than the LS engines that I am accustomed to. Too bad shoehorning an LS engine in a little Yota pickup is so difficult, especially if you're attempting to preserve 4wd.

slimbobaggins

Got an email back from engnbldr... glad I slowed down and didn't pull it all apart

I guess I'll just keep an eye on them... not too hard for me to pull the valve cover (being carbed) so there's no reason I can't do it with every oil change.

FGZ

*sigh of relief that mine is also OK*