Hey all,

I am new to YotaTech and the older Toyota trucks as well. I just picked up a clean 88 4x4 Pickup 22re with 148k on it. Everything seems to have been pretty well taken care of. It does seem to have a small oil leak. When I first got it this past weekend 7/11, after being parked over night there was a little drip of oil coming off of the skid plate. The timing cover was super gunked up and caked with grease and oil so I pressure washed and scrubbed it all off to see if I can find the leak. Today I did an oil change, I used Castrol GTX 10w-30, and when I opened the drain plug on the oil pan there was just a slight trickle of oil coming out. Before I did the oil change the oil level was fine. So after about 20 minutes of slow trickle I pushed a screw driver into where it was draining and the oil poured out fast like it should. So this leads me to believe there’s something down in the oil pan. Now I have read about the plastic timing chain guides breaking and falling down there but I don’t here any sign of chain slap?? My engine seems to be running pretty well, the only thing I can here as far as “ticking” is from the intake and I feel like that’s just the injectors, maybe it needs a small valve adjustment? If anyone has any ideas on this that would help a lot. I’m not much of a mechanic but really want to learn as I start working in this truck and getting it to be a solid runner. I forgot to mention I drove it home 200 miles after I bought it, no issues and it has a brand new radiator.

 

The best course of action is going to be to drop the pan and figure out what it is. There isnt much inside your engine that should break off and be tolerable just to leave in it sans maybe the previous owner dropped something in while doing an oil change. Use a magnet and find out if the object is magnetic. Dropping an oil pan isnt terrible difficult, just be sure to purchase a new oil pan gasket.

 

Gotta disconnect the half-shafts and remove the front diff in order to drop the pan on this model truck.

Pain in the rear, but not too difficult. First time is the hardest.

I recommend Permatex Ultra-Grey instead of any oil pan gasket.

 

Ah, Im use to having '84 problems, forgot about that! Probably correct on the ultra-gray as well.

 

Thank for the suggestions. I'm thinking if i'm going to go to the trouble of dropping the front diff and pulling the oil pan to get out whatever is in there I might as well go ahead and replace the timing chain while i'm at it.

 

Nice truck! Looks mostly original. More than likely it is a piece of timing chain guide in the oil pan. Sometimes broken guide symptoms are subtle, especially if the guide is not completely broken yet. It is easy to check the guides while the valve cover is off, and a you can adjust the valves at the same time. If you get one of those flexible grabber tools, you might be able to fish it out from up top if you are doing the timing chain with the cover removed. An inspection camera might also help if you do not want to drop the pan, but I do think dropping the pan and cleaning it is best.