So I realized that my timing chain guide was broke but not to the point where it started to rub through the cover so I ordered my parts and decided to tackle the job , I got the engine pretty much put back together tonight minus belts and accessories . I filled with oil and started so I could Adjust dizzy only a total of 30 secs run time then i was shocked I pulled the valve cover and it was chocolate milk!? What the heck happend? Possibly the water pump passage didn't seal? However the pump was not spinning so it shouldn't have been pushing water . I know I have to pull it apart but not sure what I did wrong.. Hopefully didn't hurt the motor

 

You did go with a new timing cover??

New water pump ?? If so what brand??

How did you discover the broken timing chain guide??

Antifreeze in oil will take out the bearings only time will tell.

Did you have the head off ?? Did you torque the head bolts to 65 foot pounds??

 

Never had the head off , no new pump just a gasket . Original timing cover ( it wasn't gouged ) read some stuff on line and checked mine and sure enough it was broken

 

Is there a chance it had an issue before you did the work ?

 

I meen it ran fine, no milkshake oil. I used form a gasket on both sides to help it stick to the surface. Could it be leaking from the front of the head where the timing cover meets head gasket possibly ? Maybe it got disrupted ?

 

You mentioned you filled with oil so I'm guessing you flushed the oil pan and drained any old oil from the block?Once you had the T/C off you may have allowed water into the pan.

 

Never thought of that , I wonder how much could've gotten down in the pan when I popped the cover loose

 

I just did my head gasket and once I took the t/c off there was a good amount of coolant that went straight down into the front of the oil pan. Once I knew there was no water draining down I pulled the drain plug and sprayed WD40 flushing any small pieces of gasket and water out.
If you are sure the t/c gasket is on right I don't know how else you would get water mixed in with the oil.
How old is the head gasket?

 

Mine had the chocolaty mix after I changed the timing chain at first, I just had to tighten the bolts holding the timing chain cover and it's been fine for 90k miles.

 

Make sure you have the correct length bolts in the cover, its important.

 

Well not sure what happened I flushed her out and now the oil is staying clean... Now I'm having a timing issue I have the balancer pointing at zero and key straight up but no matter what I do I can't get the rotor to line up with number one plug it's either one way or the other and one way it won't run the other way you have to advance it all the way to stay running .. I don't think I mixed the bolts up then again I didn't label them ..

 

If the problem seemed to go away then you probably just dumped a cup or 2 of water into the oil pan when you popped the timing cover loose, it drains out of the block and into your pan.

You might be OK with the bolts as is, time will tell.

As far as timing, I got nothin on that yet.

 

What's the issue with the bolt length? I found a diagram of what sizes they need to be.. If I have to il pull a few and measure them

 

Some of the bolt lengths are critical because a long bolt in a short hole can reach in and bind up the tensioner. It's one of the top oil pump bolts, but I'm not positive which one without looking at the inside of my old cover to find the through holes. A long bolt in a short blind hole will just bottom out, it's the through holes you have to double check.

 

Thanks I will pull that bolt out and make sure!

 

I am replacing timing chain on my 22 RE...timing cover off and engine has sat for a week. Drained oil today and couple ounces of antifreeze came out first and it was clear. No milky oil under valve cover nor was there any milky oil on dipstick the day I stopped running truck. I believe the coolant spilled into front of oil pan and settled to bottom when removing timing cover....any thoughts..I know...should have dumped oil before removing timing cover...

this is how I found positions of cam and crank when opening the engine...must have jumped a couple teeth..both timing chain guides broke...the guide on driver side was in pieces while the guide on passenger side was intact but cracked.

 

You should pull the head. Pan too, though some pans are hard to get off without raising engine. If you decide to leave the pan on you'll need to figure out how to get the broken pieces of the guide out. A timing chain job with head in place has high risk of leaking oil immediately. It's just not worth it. Some short cuts aren't bad where if they don't work redoing it the right way is no big deal. This repair is a big deal if the short cut fails.
The guides break because the chain hits them as the chain stretched and the tensioner was already maxed out. Now two schools of thought. You can buy guides made out of metal. They won't break if hit, but it doesn't change the fact that chains will stretch. The guides breaking is what often alerts owners to the need of a new chain. The metal ones may allow a driver to keep running the vehicle until the chain stretches to the point where it starts skipping teeth and risk bending a valve. so pros and cons both ways.
OSK has a decent quality kit for the chain. the weak link in many of those aftermarket kits is the tensioner. OSK tensioner is on par with oem. I've seen aftermarket tensioners fail very soon. Sometimes less than a year.

 

CLOWES timing chain kit arrived today with steel guide,,,only the straight guide has metal backing..the curved guide does not.. Engine had been rebuilt 40K miles ago...the head gasket went at 10K,,cheap gasket likely used,, no better on timing kit IMO.

When purchasing rebuilt motor get more info on the quality of parts being installed...cheapest vendors obviously use the cheapest parts. Last just long enough to run out the warranty.

 

Anecdotal rambling:
I did the timing chain on my "new to me" '89 at about 150 thousand. It was rattling a bunch, so I searched and found this forum. I decide to do it myself (first time inside an engine in 30 years).The driver side pieces were mostly somewhere down below. They're still there. The cover had a couple of rather deep parallel grooves from the floppy chain. Replaced it. Thought about the head and pan. My research seemed to indicate that a lot of people have difficulty with head gaskets. I reasoned that nobody is likely to get a better head gasket installation than the factory, so I left the head on. Followed the tips on this that I found on this site. Don't like rolling around under a car much anymore, so left the pan on too. It's at 198 thousand now and runs like a top. Worked for me. You do have to be very careful and avoid damaging the gaskets. Permatex Ultra Gray. Your experience may differ. p.s. I saw the bit about the metal guides, and it just didn't seem right to me, so I used the plastic. I rarely work on the cars any more since I got old, But I stick with factory parts when I do

 

We replaced headgaskets on 22R# engines all day long bitd. I'd say the average life was 6-7 years/100k, tops. A timing chain slightly longer. By default, every engine has a weakest point. in the 22R# it was the headgasket. 20R was the exhaust manifold. Ones replaced by the dealer lasted about the same length of time as the factory.