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Noticed something funny on rocker arms. Need advice.
Hey all,
my ‘84 has around 185k on it and I have no idea how many owners it has had. I decided to start looking at doing the timing chain due to the mileage, a small overheating issue (either radiator or water pump), and smoking at start up and running (white smoke, compression came out at 180psi x4 and passed the radiator leak down test). My radiator looks corroded and the coolant looks old so that’s probably my overheating culprit but when I popped the valve cover off I noticed that some of my rocker arms are not centered on my cam lobes. One of them is barely making contact with the push rod. See pictures below.
Cylinders 1 & 2 Cylinders 2 & 3Cylinders 3 & 4 Cylinder 4
My questions are:
Would this cause my engine to smoke?
How hard is this going to be to fix? Will I have to removed the head or can I shim the lifters into place?
Also, seeing as how the head looks rebuilt, would you proceed with the timing chain replacement and upgrade to a dual row with metal guides?
A little history on the truck. It used to sputter and I had the carb rebuilt/adjusted by a ship recommended to me. That problem was solved but the smoking has gradually gotten worse and more so after the adjustment. I live in Ca and need to pass a smog with it.
Thanks in advance!
Last edited by Pri$erulz; 07-06-2018 at 11:29 AM.
Reason: Changes
my ‘84 has around 185k on it and I have no idea how many owners it has had. I decided to start looking at doing the timing chain due to the mileage, a small overheating issue (either radiator or water pump), and smoking at start up and running (white smoke, compression came out at 180psi x4 and passed the radiator leak down test). My radiator looks corroded and the coolant looks old so that’s probably my overheating culprit but when I popped the valve cover off I noticed that some of my rocker arms are not centered on my cam lobes. One of them is barely making contact with the push rod. See pictures below.
Cylinders 1 & 2 Cylinders 2 & 3Cylinders 3 & 4 Cylinder 4
My questions are:
Would this cause my engine to smoke?
How hard is this going to be to fix? Will I have to removed the head or can I shim the lifters into place?
Also, seeing as how the head looks rebuilt, would you proceed with the timing chain replacement and upgrade to a dual row with metal guides?
A little history on the truck. It used to sputter and I had the carb rebuilt/adjusted by a ship recommended to me. That problem was solved but the smoking has gradually gotten worse and more so after the adjustment. I live in Ca and need to pass a smog with it.
Thanks in advance!
looks like I’m missing two spacers on my rocker arm assembly. Someone did a bonehead ‘repair’ when they rebuilt the head. Sweet. $20 for the spacers at the dealer.
The rockers slide over the plastic spacers over time. Slide the rocker towards the spring, take a pair of pliers and break out the plastic spacers. Vacuum out any debris that falls in the head. Toyota has replacement collars that are 2 piece. I would also look at the valve stem where the adjuster hits, though this does not typically get damaged. What will be damaged is the adjuster on the rocker where it contacts the valve. LC engineering I believe sells new ones, they may even have the spacers. This was common on 84 and older. I just did this repair on my own personal engine. I used a couple collars I found on an engine I was scrapping years ago.
Personally I would do headgasket, timing set and replace the rocker assembly with a known good one. I think the rockers are actually damaged and this was Toyotas fix. 85 and newer had steel spacers. They have the same rocker assembly. you will only need to swap the studs for the valve cover over, unless you use a 85 and newer cover with the 85 and newer rocker assembly.
I found a diagram of the rocker arm assembly and saw the spacers in it. $20 at the dealership for two metal replacements. I took the head off the engine to get it checked out and found some things I didn't like. Two of the nuts holding the exhaust manifold on we're hardly tight (one turned by hand), some of the others took little effort to loosen and one was kinda just wedged in there by pressure of the manifold and nut on the stud on an angle. The bolts connecting the manifold to the exhaust pipe were all over the place with torque too. The head bolts on the rear were hardly tight and got less tight towards the front of the engine. One of the bolts came out a little crusty and white like a spark plug that had been in a lean cylinder.
Here is what the block and pistons look like. The passageways for oil and coolant are a little on the clogged side. That's a little coolant in cylinder 3.
the piston is not clean on 3, that means the coolant went in while removing the head. If it were getting coolant while running, you would have a really clean piston, and 3 black ones.
07-05-2018, 03:58 PM
