Elusive engine tick. Winner gets a cookie
 

Hello again YotaTech.

Toyota gremlins are afoot again.

Truck:
1993 Pickup 22RE 4WD and whatnot.

Situation:

My truck is excellent.

It still runs better thanany of my buddys' vehicles.

It still gets better gas mileage than a new jeep.

Its still excellent.

190,5xx miles.

SO:

It starts and catches just fine. It will idle just great.

As soon as the engine is warm and I start moving the noise will appear when the engine is UNDER LOAD.

Idle, cruising speed and deceleration results only in "that awesome happy 22RE noise."

As soon as I put my foot down to overtake the odd snail or turtle, a subtle but noticable chattering tick will come from the engine. Upon letting off of the gas, the engine goes right back to being its good old self. Once I am at speed, its either too quiet to hear or gone.

I have had suggestions of valve lash and I am planning on checking my timing chain guides soon to eliminate that little issue from the troubleshooting.

There is a healthy coating of snow on the ground here and I am a newly reinstated civilian. I...dont...do...cold, If i dont absolutely have to.

So to minimize the amount of sub-zero head scratching im looking for a few of the ever-helpful YotaTech pointers and advice.

Thanks for your time guys!

spark knock
Check base timing, see if higher octane fuel makes noise lessen or disappear.

More ideas but also agree with above.


Something with clutch or transmission. Bearing deflection under load maybe?

you mean that you are going to set the valve lash, and check the timing chain guides?

when the valve lash is setup per factory spec, it's noisy even at idle... but it definitely should be checked regularly, regardless.

another thing to look at is exhaust leaks, especially the exhaust manifold gasket, it's probably hammered and leaking.

Hopefully not a rod bearing.. had one rattling in my nissan for a couple years now. Also the timing chain itself in the same truck was making contact with cover due to design of front cover and wore a hole into water pump location. Not sure if applicable to 22re.

x2 on the timing chain!!!

It was just a tick that i chalked up to a valve but one day temp skyrocketed and all the coolant was in the oil.

is something loose up front? like my grill is loose and scared the crap out of me the first time I heard it rattling at idle. I know its a long shot but everyone else seemed to cover everything else

my exhaust was super leaky and sounded a lot like this. Tighten all the bolts on your header and look for holes or something loose around the cat or muffler.

id get a new valve cover gasket ,adjust the valves,very easy,and check that timing chain guide.valve adjustment is in the fsm.shouldnt take more than an hour or two.id bet that cookie on this!!!

sound like spark knock to me. dump a bottle of octane boost in the tank and maybe a tune up?

Check the break between exhaust manifold and down pipe. There's two metal/paper donuts that fail and leak. Make sure you have three nuts on the studs that hold it together. I was down to one, made a bad sound, was a little gutless.

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Well, I'll start the troubleshooting with the higher octane gas when I fuel up today.

That cookie is sitting right here waiting for a winner so we'll see.

Exhaust leak. Give me a Miller Lite.

Yeah, and what kind of cookie am I getting? Ain't into nuts n hippie stuff like that.

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Well, update: Just threw a full tank of 89 in there with the lucas fuel treatment.

No change.

Well then, I switch my guess to exhaust leak.

You can hear an exhaust leak cleary at idle.

Couldn't hear mine at idle over all the other 22RE happy sounds.

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Just in my exp. Guess it depends on severity. A happy 22re is a noisy booger.