dougm395

i wa swondering if i could change the timing cover without removing my head 1992 truck 22re 4x4

stock87

Yes, but you have to be very careful not to munch the head gasket when you slide the new one in. You also have to pull the distributor drive gear off the front of the camshaft because there is a bolt in the puddle of oil directly below it that holds the timing cover on.

Pulling the oil pan is pretty much mandatory.

dougm395

what happens if you bunch the headgasket

all_terrain17

It leaks oil. Like mine

Brendan

you don't really have to remove the oil pan, just loosen the bolts. i tried changing the timing chain without removing the head, failed and had to go back and do it properly. it's a whole lot less work to leave the head in place, but be as careful as possible cuz doing the job twice really really sucks.

Buck01

I have never done it, BUT..the shop that just replaced the timing chain and misc parts on my truck did not remove the head or the pan. Like was said above. they loosened the pan bolts.

4Crawler

iTrader: (3)

Like this:
- http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTri...ingChain.shtml

EWAYota

I would suggest just removing the head. I tried to do it as others have, and I have now gone 8 months without driving my truck because I pinched the head gasket. I now have my head in the basement, and a new gasket set, timing chain, oil pump, water pump and timing cover waiting to go on.

Flash319

Not hard to do. Do a seach and you will find many people have no problems doing it with the hea on. Just make sure you drop the front of the oil pan a bit.

ovrrdrive

We also tried and failed...

Do yourself a favor and spend the extra 4 hours to drop the pan and pull the head. It's so much easier and the job is done right...

Bear80

I pulled mine and the only "issue" was trying to put the t-cover back on without messing up the head gasket since the oil pump has to slide on straight. But that only takes a second to insure and I never though of it as any problem. The oil pan should come off, I just cannot see how there is anyway to get a soild bead of RTV to seal properly.

ovrrdrive

If you mount the oil pump on the cover after you install the cover that's a non-issue...

The issue we had was getting the cover on the dowels straight while not crushing the head gasket. The clearance was so tight it just wasn't going to happen. And that was with the pan dropped.

I yanked the head and tried and it went straight on.

dougm395

im getting oil in my radiator but no water in my oil im going to try to change it this weekend. when we rebuilt i noticed a deep groove where the chain had wore. also we over tightened the top bolt and heard a crack im thinking this is my problem. any takers

SwampThing

Yeah when I was replacing my timing cover, I pinched the oil pan and head gasket. Ended up loosening 6 bolts towards the front of the oil pan so I could coax the timing cover in without having to drop the diff in order to drop the oil pan. Went from 60 curse words per minute trying to sqeeze it in there without loosening oil pan, to 10 curse words per minute by loosening up those front bolts to slide it in there a little easier.