VEHICLE: 89 Toyota pickup 22RE 5 speed 2WD 2.4L. SOHC MFI
HISTORY: So long story short (yes this is the short version lol) I’ve had this rig for about 10yrs I’ve replaced the clutch and both the master and slave cylinders…no issues. Then while doing brodies in the snow and slush I blew a head gasket so I did the minimum I could do for this repair I.E. full gasket set but no other parts no timing chain, thermostat, not even sending head to machine shop BUT I did do a pretty thorough measuring job on head and block mating surfaces and found very minimal if any warpage. Repair went alright but after several 100 miles 1x1 things started to take a ˟˟˟˟. 1st being throttle position sensor, then engine coolant temp sensor, then mass air flow sensor, I believe you see it, the replaced something relatively big and 1x1 the little things fail. One other diagnostic trouble code is for the O2 sensor the reason I mention that is to say that it hasn’t been fixed yet so keep that in mind.
MY ISSUE(S): just recently got all those part failures fixed(excluding O2 sensor) so I have yet to set the idler screw and taken a voltmeter reading to set TPS(cause mass air flow meter was bad) needless to say it ran pretty rough and very recently has gotten BAAAD. Symptoms are very poor on power, runs\idles rough, fairly hard to start, fuel mileage is bad, you can just tell during accel. it is not timed right or no spark somewhere (but that’s not the case with the spark) its like it runs fine then ˟˟˟˟ty alternating super fast over and over good bad good bad. So what I’ve tried is the things I can do without taking anything apart that requires $ to put back on and haven’t taken anything off that can’t be put back on and it somewhat drive away (info not needed but will help u understand: I live in my truck so I can’t have it torn down for anything I can’t fix during the same repair session so I can leave area somewhat quickly) What I have done is this reset timing to 8 deg. BTDC per FSM=did need adjusted but problem remains. So I then checked and adjusted valves, found 1 exh Valve barely to tight and 1 exh vale super loose= adjusted but still no change. And yes this is going to piss you off cause I don’t have the data to give you from a compression or oil pressure test. Gauge on dash reads normal for oil pressure.
MY THEORY: I can’t be sure (help if I’m wrong) without taking to much off to stay quickly repairable so I can move. But I think the timing chain has slipped a tooth or something when I did the valve adj. I looked at chain it didn’t seem damaged but it was loose enough that I could almost use the slack to set it off by one tooth on cam shaft gear. If I could almost do it maybe with mechanical torque and what not isn’t it feasible that it could have slipped a tooth? Maybe tensioner is going out or something. Its kinda hard to tell when the marks on crank pulley and cam gear are at 6 and 12 0’clock exactly respectively. But I got them as close as I could, if their off its not by much at all(maybe one tooth). Does my theory seem plausible? Do you have any other theories or insight. I’d settle for a way to tell if I’ve slipped a tooth or chain has to much slack without taking the front of the engine apart. Or maybe I’m way off and you know something I don’t (obviously lol) I’ll leave whatever contact info I have in case you need more info or whatever it takes cause I’m very anxiously awaiting your thoughts and suggestions and thank you for your help
Jamison Rudy
Jamminjami29@gmail.com

 

the first thing you need to do is check and set/adjust your TPS sensor, you cant just put a new one on and have it work right. I would guess thats the source of your issues. I believe setting timing etc is sort of worthless if your TPS is out of whack.