DIY - GX460 Valve Covers, Cam Towers, Coolant Valley and Timing Cover (1 Viewer)

[agentmm]

milestone reached. you should be stoked.

timing cover looks minty.

I don't know. Passenger side stuff...

Again, not sure. Driver side stuff.
Just take stock of the fact that we got the timing cover off and out without lifting the engine.

This picture shows the hydraulic tensioner being locked down so we can introduce enough slack into the system to remove the chains. You lift the link (its resting on the allen key pin I have in the pic) so that the tensioner pushes out all the way...then you can pry it back carefully and when it locks, insert a pin (allen key) to hold it in place. This was tricky for me. One thing that should be mentioned is that it is full of oil so continue to actuate it to dump the oil and make it easier on yourself.

 

[agentmm]

I ended up removing (2) bolts per tensioner (per side pass and driver) and yanked them out of the block so we could generate max slack in the chains.

once I removed the tensioners...I slide the slipper out.

You need to loosen off these (4) 17mm nuts that hold the cam gears down.

Milestone. Timing chains off. Stoked.

Again, we will re-time all this s*** later so pile it up and call it good.

 

[agentmm]

This is where I removed the fuel rails. I should have done this back when I told you to do it....did you listen?

Time to remove the passenger cam towers. Make your notes how you want to make your notes but this kept me in line. I would remove a row of "C" bolts and wrap them in tape and write "C" on the tape. etc. It's how I work.

drivers side cam tower.

cam towers are out. So sick.

Milestone. Plant your flag and call that the summit. We made it.

 

[agentmm]

This is the cleaned up face for the cam tower gasket. Please note that all holes are plugged or covered/taped. I used extra fine Scotchbrite pads to clean all this up. Some brake-clean on a rag is helpful. DON'T MAR THE SURFACE WITH STEEL.

Cleaned the piss out of the cam towers.

Lay the bolts back out and prepare for the reinstallation. It is important that they are organized and ready to go because FIPG is going to be applied to the surfaces and it solidifies fast so you have to be ready.

I remember this. I did not get a chance to take a picture of the cam tower with fresh sealant put down. Please draw a continuous bead of sealant by following the inside edge of the cam tower. I will try and find a pic in the FSM but lets get this post done first.

At this point, I was cleaning up a bolt and dropped it from waist height. It spun around like Tony Hawk in a halfpipe and landed exactly like this.
Hand to heart, swear to god.
I believe the ancient wrenching texts consider this a good omen. You be the judge.

 

[agentmm]

Cleaning up the timing cover after the cam towers were sealed. Make note of the seals and stuff related to the timing cover. Some of this stuff was included in my FEL PRO gasket set...some was not.

A minty timing cover all cleaned up. Spiffy.

Another minty pic.

Clean the face of the front up really good before installing the timing cover. Takes forever but worth a good seal.
Imagine doing this job again? F that.

All I had to rotate the cam shafts was this 15/16th wrench. It works in a pinch. Let's set up the (4) cam shafts to their ROUGH position according to the FSM.
Looking at the engine head on (so standing at the front of the car facing the windshield), the most left cam shaft has a pin on it that should be turned 55 degrees to left from the 12 o clock position. This is the exhaust cam. The intake cam is the next one in on the passenger side. The pin should be 70 degrees to the left from the 12 o clock position.
The driver side has an intake cam (closer to the centre of the engine) and it's pin position is 45 degrees to the left from the 12 o clock position. The final cam shaft is the furthest right (exhaust) and its position is 3 degrees to the left of top (12 o clock position).
These positions are approximations and you will set up the timing gears and tweak as necessary with the wrench on the cam shaft.

 

[agentmm]

This is a good time to watch the YT video I posted in the REFERENCE MATERIALS section at the beginning. The smaller chain has yellow chain links that are used with timing marks on the back of the cam gears.

you use the single dash with the yellow link. NOT the double dash you see here. Check out the next pic.

Check it.

The long chain (this is the passenger side) has a double orange link and a single orange link. The double orange link is used at the cam gears and the single link is used at the crank shaft at the bottom of the engine. The small dot barely visible on the cam gear in this picture sits BETWEEN the 2 orange links. NOTE THIS!

At this point, I realize I should have just removed the static slipper earlier in this process to provide maximum space to reinstall the chain. I do this now. Remove the 2 bolts and the slipper to get the chain in here.

 

[agentmm]

ok so now the chain is on. And the slipper is installed. We haven't discussed the crank shaft timing mark yet but we are about to.

Before we head south to the crankshaft, here is 1 last look at the cam gear with the 2 orange links lined up. I don't know where there are grinding/file marks here but this is where that dot is located. I am lined up.

Really zoomed in. Dot in between 2 orange links. Good.

Use an inspection mirror on the crankshaft to get a look underneath the crank gear. You have to do this because timing marks will force the single orange link under the crank shaft. It won't be visible to verify timing locations from above. But if you are here...I bet you it's all lined up. Verify this and repeat on drivers side and just keep working the chain around until it lines up.
If you can't get the cam gears to click onto the cam shafts, use your wrench up top to jiggle the cam shaft back and forth until you can slide the cam gears onto the pins and the cam shafts and gear rotate as 1 unit.
This stuff was pretty fool proof...just follow the diagrams (2155 in the FSM) and use your head.

Like a gravy boat with biscuit wheels. Mint.
I skipped the reinstall of the tensioners and their associated slippers. Do better if that was hard for you.

 

[agentmm]

Now it is time for the timing cover:

Stage your bolts and refer to the FSM (page 2342) for the sequencing and torque specs. Get your mind right. Focus.

Sealant applied to the timing cover according to the FSM (same page as above)
I PUNCHED THE CRANKSHAFT SEAL OUT AND REPLACED IT WITH A NEW ONE.

Milestone. Fist pump. That timing cover is mint.

Cleaned the injectors and replaced the seals and O rings that came in the FEL PRO pack.

I stupidly used the new belt as a tool to provide counter force to the pulley so I could torque the crankshaft bolt down to 220 foot pounds. I got it done. Don't do this. Do better than I did.

 

[agentmm]

Valve cover gets cleaned up. New seals and new gasket. Make note of the gasket/O rings that get replaced in here (5 I think). Those were supposed to come in my FEL PRO pack but I think they only provided 2 of the 5 that fit the GX. YOU NEED TO APPLY A SMALL DAB OF FIPG TO THE VALVE COVER FACE. Please look at the FSM for further details or YouTube it

Valve covers reinstalled. Do not forget the central bolt you removed. It needs a new washer (provided in the FEL PRO gasket pack on Rock Auto)
Torque specs for the perimeter bolts is only 15 foot lbs or so. Let the gasket do the work...don't crank.

Back to the coolant valley. Clean this up really good again. Get ready to slap the cover on.
Earlier in this series, we discussed the water tube that has (2) O rings.
Use the silicone lube and set the rings on the tube. Then place the tube in the block. Be careful not to roll or kink the O rings. Guys go off track here.

Here is a pic of the coolant valley plate with fresh FIPG. By the way, I cut into a 2nd tube of sealant for these jobs. So buy 2 when you are at Toyota.

Torque specs for these fasteners was low as well so please be careful. Let the FIPG do the work. 15 foot lbs or something. Verify in the FSM.
Notice the plate slid onto the water tube. With adequate O ring lube, this is a piece of cake.

 

[agentmm]

This is the new harness for the knock sensors. It was worth ordering this. I bet a lot of yours a re busted up from the heat down here.

Reinstallation. WITH NEW PCV. Remember to do this.

This is pretty much everything back to together. Just follow the instructions in the reverse order. Go Get'em Tiger...

 

[agentmm]

After doing these repairs, I filled it up with oil (8 qts or so) and TOYOTA coolant (16 qt's max but I needed 12ish....still topping it up) and fired it up.
It ran high idle for a bit and had a mean chain slap so I powered it down and had a think on the situation.
Since the chain tensioners are hydraulic, I hypothesized that they needed time to actuate fully through oil pressure. My thought process was that more/longer run time would sort out the tensioners and reduce the chain slap.

After running the rig for a 25 miles, there is no chain slap and no codes on the dash.

 

[Rednexus]

Great pics and a bear of a job. Makes my 2UZ header install - and maybe even dash/HVAC servo replacement - look pretty easy.

How many hours total do you have in this, out of curiosity?

 

[agentmm]

Great pics and a bear of a job. Makes my 2UZ header install - and maybe even dash/HVAC servo replacement - look pretty easy.

How many hours total do you have in this, out of curiosity?

Was a lot of work. But I wanted to get this stuff out of the way all together.

Hours: I was here for a week. Every day for the daylight hours. I was going slow though and taking breaks.

 

[jgalt]

2 things:
1) Holy....congrats man!
2) Are you tired?

 

[agentmm]

2 things:
1) Holy....congrats man!
2) Are you tired?

1) thank you
2) re-energized now that it runs without (*knock on wood*) major issue(s)

I was pretty smoked after that job but stoked to have it bagged.

 

[Rednexus]

I can easily see that taking a week. No offense but it makes me thankful to have a UZ.

What would the shop labor have been? Guessing an easy $3-4K, maybe more. Overall not bad for a week - can always look at it as a money-saving vacation .

 

[agentmm]

I can easily see that taking a week. No offense but it makes me thankful to have a UZ.

What would the shop labor have been? Guessing an easy $3-4K, maybe more. Overall not bad for a week - can always look at it as a money-saving vacation .

Out of curiosity, I called the stealership. They want 8500-9000$ (+/-) to do this job.
A Toyota specific garage wanted 5k but that didn't include all of this work (so a conservative estimate).

Cost doesn't matter to me. I'm not trusting anyone else to do this job on my behalf.

 

[Rednexus]

Out of curiosity, I called the stealership. They want 8500-9000$ (+/-) to do this job.
A Toyota specific garage wanted 5k but that didn't include all of this work (so a conservative estimate).

Cost doesn't matter to me. I'm not trusting anyone else to do this job on my behalf.

Pretty good cost-benefit analysis....I'd give up a week of vacation to save something on that order (guessing you have some money in parts and tools).

I'm in the same boat. I don't trust other people to work on my vehicles and turn every wrench other than tires and alignments. Recently had an issue when my retired mom took her Subaru into the stealership and they tried to claim it needed $9K of work....on a car that was worth $9K. All it needed were the ABS codes scanned and two O2 sensors replaced.

 

[swild]

Unreal! I've been wanting to tackle the timing chain cover and this post has convinced me it's possible. Thanks for posting all of this, you're a champ.

 

[swild]

Question...
Where's this youtube video you keep mentioning? Can you post the link to it?
Thanks!