Hello, I need help with a timing chain noise...on an 89 22re EFI stock motor.
So, timing chain noise on a new kit from DOA with metal guides and dont want to have to hang one part at a time to button up and re-trouble shoot... what I am going to do is get a 1) oem tensioner, 2)a plastic guide for the passenger side, 3) getting an oil pump that will deliver higher pressure at idle (about 10 psi), 4) a good quality timing cover because mine has the usual swirl marks and I would have piece of mind knowing that the swirl marks made by the old oil pump gears are not lowering the oil pressure of a new oil pump...

I am a little worried about blowing out my seals with this said " higher pressure " oil pump which I have been told is an ASIN pump that has been anodized in certain ways to bring up the pressure but I figured that I would pull out all of the stops cuase I do not want to have to get in their again for a while.. the vendor told me that they basically use them to bring the oil pressure up at idle for the engines that they work on...

History and ramifications of things if you want to keep reading....
I have an 1989 toyota pick up that had a blown head gasket... when I decided to do the head gasket I thought I had better take care of the rest of the motor since it had 190k...
So it got new rings by hastings, got the head machined and checked, crank polished, new main, thrust and rod bearings, new timing gear set from DOA with metal guides, new radiator, water pump, rear main seal, clutch and clutch components... basincally I am rebuilding the thing and dont want any new leaks or trouble with the internal components.
The only thing I was not satisfied with is the Timing chain noise that I did not have before which the components appeared to be all OEM... But they were changed out anyway..
Upon dismantling after I ran it for a couple of days to try and break in the rings I found the one of the guides on the drivers side was putting tension on the timing chain... which is the replacement from DOA that is the metal one... I am thinking that it was a tensioner problem becuase it may have been an aftermarket tensioner, or low oil pressure causing the tensioner not to work so well at idle speed up to about 1200 rpm...
IT sounds like a old cheap wind up alarm clock under a pillow...or a scaled down versiono of the chain noise from an old wooden roller coaster.. after you rev it to about 2000 or 2200 it goes away for a while.. I had some of my friends who are mechanics verify what I had though without contributing what I had suspected...

One of the few things that I can think of for this noise and that it could indicate is low oil pressure, or bad aftermarket tensioner, or improperly shaped or fabricated passenger side metal guide...( the bolts that came with it did not fit the whole on the top which looked like an attempt to make it a slotted whole that was not correctly machined... I had to reem it and file it to get it to accept the bolt the first time and now I reemed it and filed the other whole and filed it to make it to be adjustable... (if it was supposed to be adjustable) and after making it a slotted whole it did not help the situation of the guide acting like it was taking up the tension on the chain by being able to use the other whole that was right alongside to the whole that I thought was the most reasonable whole to use during the first assembly... so this did not fix the suspected problem of the chain running and pressing against the passanger side metal guide it only looked like it was going to make worse complications and noises... and it was making the tensioner push in when I slid the guide over to where the other whole was that would take up slack in the chain... and by all reason you would think that the guide should not be the tensioner.... the tensioner should be the tensioner so it did not make sense to me to keep it in the equation. I am leaning toward an oem plastic guide for the passenger side
Some other kits like the evergreen have one metal guide drivers side ( the one the commonly breaks...) and they also have one plastic guide ( passenger side )

IF YOU LOOK AT THE PICS OF THE NEW CHAIN AND SPROCKETS WITH THE NEW TENSIONER AND HOW FAR OUT THE TENSIONER (.722 of an inch) IS COMPARED TO THE OLD TIMING GEARS AND CHAIN SET WITH THE SAME TENSIONER YOU WILL SEE THAT THE DISTANCE FOR THE TENSIONER IS ABOUT .20 inches.... max extension between the tensioner cylinder that extends and the tensioner pad the rubs against the chaini is about 1 inch... so with the new kit you only have 1/4 of an inch travel left on the chain tensioner... with the old oem timing set the distance it .432 of an inch so you have about 1/2 inch travel with the old componenets and new tensioner compared to 1/4 of an inch travel.with the new components and the new tensioner..whats up with that? something don't seem right here. With the the old gear set and chain the tensioner doesn't have to stick out as far as this new chain and sprocket set.. I will try to test the distances between the old timing gear and chain along with the new one with the oem tensioner in place.... I have heard of peoples who had trouble with aftermarket tensioners where they dont really take measurements and just go get an oem tensioner... but after ciewing the distance of travel I am thinking of sticking with the old chain and sprocket set and just keep the metal guide in place that I got from DOA... this is depressing to have to go back and fix when it wasn't making noise and I thought I was upgrading what I had.... will try and keep you all posted... hope it helps someone.

note there is already some suspicious wear on the new timing chain and everything was set in to place and run for about 2 days and 20 miles at various speeds. pics included if I can get them up on this thread.

new chain and sprockets and distance between tesioner and back of tensioner pad is .722 of an inch

old chain and sprockets and distance between tensioner and back of tensioner pad is .432

new chain and sprocket and if you look at the shiny marks on the inside of the links and on the edges of the sprocket these are wear marks.

 

Your sure the noise is not from the valve cover being to Tight ( which is very easy to do) and sounding like the engine is going to explode or a sewing machine before pulling things apart.

I have used the High volume oil pumps in the 22R and RE engines stayed away from high pressure oil pumps on advice from Ted years ago at Engine Builder .

Good luck!

 

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your advice.. I checked up and read up on that issue from other comments posted here before I did the job or jobs which was helpful and I did not crank down on the valve cover although I have read 4.5 ft lbs is what some say and to me that is too tight If you go by how it squishes and do a visual inspection to look for leaks it may will be way less than that as I have found out by experimenting and comparing the sealed hand (and socket wrench) and visual tightening method and then if you put inch pound torque wrench set at about 50 inch lbs that thing wont click until those grommets and gaskets are really pressed all the way down and to me that is far beyond any reasonable torque needed to seal this valve cover with new gaskets and grommets... in fact my friend who is a mechanic commented about how I dont like to crank down on them... so it is very unlikely that it is a valve cover clearance issue...

Thanks for the input though
I am going to keep going in the directions that I think best suits the situation from what I can gather from or go out to the backyard lift the hood and see what I can do about things to get them running as best as I can and continue to post....

 

I think your spot on either low oil pressure or foreign tensioner not keeping thing as tight as they should be at idle.

when I do Timing Chain when Ted ( Engine Builder ) was in business I always did new timing cover oil pump and water pump just because .

Good Luck I am curious how this plays out

though it never hurts to check the easy first my luck it is never easy

 

Thanks..Waiting for parts and getting stuff ready to reassemble for now.. will post results...

 

This is my follow up concerning this undeniable timing chain and component noise...that I was having trouble with.
swapped out and replaced suspicious parts such as tensioner, sprockets, chain and passanger side after market metal backed guide also installed a new oil pump and new timing cover..
I swapped out suspicious parts started it up and ran it at warm up (it was very quiet)... after it warmed up it had a slight noise coming from the same timing cover area... after it warmed up I can hear the same noise but it is very faint... so I am at the point where I will have to see how it will perform over time and if it comes back again Time will tell...
here is what I did in more detail and thought I'd type it out because it might help someone else...
Here are the new and old parts on I put on...which drastically helped this noise problem... an OEM tensioner $140... OEM passanger side plastic damper about $40, I put the old chain and sprockets back on because they did not show much wear, new timing cover $80, New Oil Pump from LCE that is supposed to put out 10psi at idle and 10psi for every 1000 rpm, this part cost about $100... I had a front seal, and a oil pump gasket, as well as some timing cover gaskets on the shelf, I reused my almost brand new water pump that was on the initial install...
I took the front cover off while the engine was in the vehicle and swapped the new sprockets and chain with the original OEM ones that were on the motor becuase they did not have much wear and I also put the old timing chain back on... I also took off the metal backed guide that was on the passenger side (tensioner side) of the timing chain this was the one that came with the kit by DOA... and I replaced it with an new OEM one that is plastic...I had a bad theory about how the passenger side metal backed damper was affecting the way that the tensioner was functioning..... I also think that Toyota had a reason for designing their dampers in a way that they have been shaped at the top.. if you look at them they have edges that are formed to fit around the edges of the chain kind of like a anti derail guide... to keep the chain from possibly derailing although that might not be the reason for it and they could be there for some other reason like to prevent timing chain slap on start up... I haven't met many people who have been able to eliminate that chain slap noise and I hear that it happens a lot especially when people put on after market tensioners... How ever I do find that even with an OEM tensioner I can hear chain slap at start up even with an OEM tensioner in place and am wondering if it is because the new metal backed damper on the driver side does not have the same shaped look at the top like the OEM ... so I can only speculate...And there is no way that I am going back to take it all apart again to replace the metal backed guide with an OEM plastic one... I am pretty much at piece with this issue and will have to run it and break it in from here an see what happens....So it was about $360 to get the thing to sound like it is going to run right without failing due to a break down associated with timing chain and related parts... I hope that this noise which is faint now does not get worse but goes away or that it is a wear in break in thing... but we all know murphy's law so time will tell... I'd say at this point that it is 90% better.. as I mentioned before that a company like Evergreen makes a metal backed guide kit and it probably cost a lot less than the one I bought off of DOA.. Yota shop also has driver side metal backed guide this is the one that breaks quite often you can find one at Yota shop...for like $18 plus whatever shipping is... its a lot less than what I had to pay for everything just to get it running the way it is... there is a link to the metal back guide at Yota shop.. if anyone just wants to replace their broken guide and get the rest of their parts like a felpro gasket set from Autozone or Advance or something like that...
https://www.yotashop.com/metal-guide...995-15-7133h/\