hey guys well ive been thinking lately, ive got 114,000 right now on the clock on my 98 2.7L and i was wondering if i will ever need to replace the timing chain. i know that with the timing belts you should change them at every 60K. but what about the chains? is it ever necessary.
the reason i ask is because my friend has a '93 pickup and he just broke his timing chain on his 22RE and he only had 76K on it.
so just wondering how i can tell if it is wearing or if there is anything i can do to get the longest life out of it

-Casey

 

nothin huh?

 

the chain breaking on the 93 sounds premature, i got 130, before i changed mine and it was just starting to wear bad, if i were you i would change it, its alot less expenseive to change it then to break it

me and my family change our toyota's chains every 100,000

my dad has 300,000 on his and still going strong so we must be doing something right!

later
wade

 

The 2.7L has a timing chain? Sorry I don't know much about the newer motors I just thought that they were all timing belts now.

 

yep it sure is.
thanx for the insight, Wade

im gonna get it replaced as soon as i can scrounge up some money for it

-Casey

 

Prolly a good idea, I changed the chain on mine at 135k give or take a K or two its been almost a year since we did it. My guides were eaten away something bad and I'm glad me and my dad changed it.

 

Krash,
its a pretty intense job to do yourself huh?
i dont think i will be tackling it myself. but just wanna know exactly how hard it would be to complete a job like this

-Casey

 

Just put it this way it'll take ya a while, me and my dad did it in two days, but we had never did something like that before.

 

from start to finish it takes me 6 hours to do a complete timing chain/head gasket swap, not that hard just tediouse......you can follow chiltons pretty easy.

i would rate a engine rebuild on the 1-10 scale being a 7 for me hard wise, a timing chain a 4.

hope that helps
wade

 

Just out of curiousity, did Toyota put better timing chain gudes on the 2.7 engine? the 22RE engines had notoriously bad timing chain guides.

I replaced my timing chain and guides with metal backed DOA guides a few years back. No worries.

 

Why would you replace a timing chain prematurely on a non-interference engine? Doesn't make sense to me.

If I remember correctly, the timing chain does not have a recommended change interval in the FSM. I dont get it.

 

A couple of reasons come to mind.

1) Interference or non-interference, a broken timing chain will leave you stranded. You aren't going anywhere without a tow.

2) A broken timing chain may damage the other parts of the engine, which would cost even more to fix.

It seems like good preventive maintenance.

 

So you are willing to drop 1 to 2 thousand dollars to have something replaced that is not even recommended by the FSM?

I am not convinced.

 

so is the 2.7 non-interference?

 

im not positive on the 2.7l engine, but on my 2.4l it costs 100 bucks for parts if you dont change the head gasket and it costs you only 34 more if you do, thats alot less then 1-2000, much less, i know that if you break a timing chain on my engine, you are out at least 600 bucks for a new timing chain cover to go along with the timing chain....and after they wear down you actually start to lose power and bog on hills..... i think its just a good thing to do, you also get to check your water pump to see if it may fail to...always a good thing.

wade