yesterday after a trip on the freeway, i stopped at the store. afterwards, i got back in my truck and fired it up. what struck me as odd was i was getting a pretty bad rattling sound much like the timing chain, but it was also causing my tach to do some pretty funky things. pulled the valve cover, and the valves were in spec.i checked my ignition and everything seemed well(though i replaced my coil for good measure, as mine was rusted out). asked around for help, and was told it was probably my distributor. i swapped in my old one from the 20R, and same result. skipping tach and a horrible rattle to 2500RPM, then it would run smooth and my tach would stop going nuts until i brought the revs down again.

frustrated, i pulled the valve cover to see if i could find any more problems. then i saw it. the timing gear was kind of crooked! i turned the crank over, and watched as there would be slack with the distributor drive gear on the cam, and the timing gear would wobble. oh no, this can't happen to me...

i broke the dowel pin!

i pulled out the cam bolt and tapped off the distributor gear, and sure enough, 2 pieces fell out. a third was stuck in the camshaft, countersunk. fortunately the pieces had still been kind of holding together, but if i had driven much more i'm sure they would've disintegrated, which would allow the timing gear to spin, which in turn would let the pistons smash into the valves since they'd be out of synch with the crank...destroying the engine.

so right now, the only solution is going to be to get the camshaft out and knock out the pin(though replacing the cam wouldn't be a bad idea either). however, being a 22R i have to pull the rocker assembly and redo the head gasket. might think about swapping a head as well as mine has some corrosion in the water jacket -- only time will tell now.

 

is this on your freshly rebuilt engine? if so, dang! that sucks.....

 

Do I smell a 'wrench weekend' in the works?

 

more like "wrench wednesday night and all thursday" they've got me working all weekend this time around. i'm gonna go make a visit to the 20R boneyard behind my garage and see if the camshaft i have in my ancient cylinder head is any good -- hopefully i won't find any bent valves when i yank the head on the new one :eek:

i just now figured out that if i had taken the 2 seconds to pop on the fuel pump cam(my truck's got an electric pump from the factory) i wouldn't be in this situation. hindsight is 20/20, and i sure seem to be learning a lot about that on this new engine

 

You have a nice truck man....

 

That sucks Kyle, real bad man. Hopefully you can get er' fixed and up and running again. Best of luck.

 

thanks for the support guys, she'll run again in no time!

i hope so at least

 

Good save. Sounds like a fairly easy fix. Good luck.

 

hey kyle,

if you need a 20r headgasket, or a stock fuel injected cam, let me know, i have both sitting around the garage.

wade

 

well, i ended up buying a new cam. figured that i'd try something new, but needed it done NOW(i had a most likely usable one in my previous engine, but i don't wanna take the time to tip it upright to get it out). took me all day to do the job, but she runs again

had it stripped down all the way to the block, nice to see no valve marks on the pistons. runs great, although i've never heard this thing run so smooth or quiet. guess that's how it's supposed to be though. i'm just hoping my new head gasket works out alright though, time will tell there.

 

Nice job! I think im gonna have to tear down my head again. I think my headgasket is starting to leak again. This time i'm gonna replace the head. Were you able to reuse all the gaskets (expect HG ofcourse)? Good luck with the motor!

 

Sorry to hear of the engine woes Kyle. I love my little 22r as well and would be distressed about it to say the least.

I'm interested in your rebuild and how you like it after your done. I need to do the same to mine, just with summer on now, it's gonna be tuff.

Great motor IMO and wish you all the luck. Keep us posted.

Jutty

 

That's a bummer glad you caught it before bent valves happened. I actually had a 3VZE cam do that on my old 4 runner.
I changed out both cams as a set with some older cams because it had ovaled out the dowel hole before the pin snapped.

I bought a extra headgasket for my 22r when I do the EFI conversion and need to change the cam out..
What cam did you get anyways?

 

Kyle,

I told you before that I'd give you $500.00 to get that thing outta your life.

You could buy a new Heep and "never" have to worry about having it break on you!!




Doug M.

Just kidding, good work. I'm glad you brought her back to life!!!