rustED71's 1991' Ex-cab Build

[Manhattan]

That looks like you used a time machine... not paint. Seriously - those wheels look like they should be on a new truck!
They look fantastic. And, I love (!) how "TOYOTA" now pops on the wheels.

 

[rustED71]

That looks like you used a time machine... not paint. Seriously - those wheels look like they should be on a new truck!
They look fantastic. And, I love (!) how "TOYOTA" now pops on the wheels.

Thanks @Manhattan for the compliment, that means a lot coming from someone as detailed oriented as you! I agree that the color really pops, I like them alot better than the last set that I did with satin black. Here are some before and after pics of them installed:

Out with the Old:

And in with the new:

 

[rustED71]

A quick poser pic on the way to work...a little Mt Pass I travel every day...4600' elevation overlooking some burned up National forest.

 

[rustED71]

"Its been awhile since my last update. I've put approximately 18,000 miles on the truck since swapping in the 22re from my old 87 4runner and the motor has ran great without any issues"...

^^^I spoke too soon, I blew the head gasket on Wednesday, I left it parked at work and will be trailering it home tomorrow. Hopefully the head isn't warped or cracked as I didnt run it excessively hot...i already have a brand new headgasket, headbolts, water pump and timing chain set that I had bought last year for the original motor before finding out the head was cracked, so fingers crossed that this head is still in good shape!...

If not ...maybe its time for a change...???

 

[rustED71]

well I was going replace the headgasket, but on closer inspection of the head I noticed the coolant passages are eroded pretty bad.
Time for a new head...

 

[rustED71]

Finally made some progress. New head with cam, headgasket, timing chain & gears new steel guides, new waterpump....I hope to get the reassembly finished up on my next days off.

 

[aztoyman]

Nice! I'm glad you decided to keep the Toyota engine. I had that happen to my wife's 86 4Runner WAY back when there really weren't replacement heads available. Had to TIG weld the corroded passages except it was the ones closest to the exhaust valve. Had it surfaced and lapped the valves. It ran for MANY years after. Had over 450K miles when our son totaled it.

I guess the point is that the 22RE is a damn good engine other than the timing chain and HG issues. And replacement parts have improved at least. I hope it gives you many more trouble free miles. Nice truck.

 

[rustED71]

Nice! I'm glad you decided to keep the Toyota engine. I had that happen to my wife's 86 4Runner WAY back when there really weren't replacement heads available. Had to TIG weld the corroded passages except it was the ones closest to the exhaust valve. Had it surfaced and lapped the valves. It ran for MANY years after. Had over 450K miles when our son totaled it.

I guess the point is that the 22RE is a damn good engine other than the timing chain and HG issues. And replacement parts have improved at least. I hope it gives you many more trouble free miles. Nice truck.

Thanks aztoyman, I agree with you, I really do like the 22re motors...i kind of toyed around with the idea of putting the 5.3 vortec in it, but I have a 71' FJ40 project that I think will be a better canidate for that motor swap. I still have the original block that came in the 91 that I think I will slowly build for if/when this one goes down...but im hoping like you said I get a quite a few trouble free years and miles out of this one first!

 

[aztoyman]

I built a few 22RE 's. My favorite build had a new bore and hone. I ran a Enginebuilder 270 cam and oversize valves (no longer in business), some mild port work. Bowls blended and gasket match. Head shaved a bit for more compression. A header, universal high flow cat and 2 1/4" exhaust. All emissions intact. Well except the EGR port in the intake had a plug in it to keep the crud out of the intake. I forgot to take it out once for emissions test and it still passed. I ran a quality timing chain and steel guides. I got my 88 up to 100 on I-10 a couple times running 5.29 gears and 35" tires.

I know LC Engineering has a lot of hop up parts but, I never had that kind of budget back then. Good luck with your build.

Scott

 

[rustED71]

I built a few 22RE 's. My favorite build had a new bore and hone. I ran a Enginebuilder 270 cam and oversize valves (no longer in business), some mild port work. Bowls blended and gasket match. Head shaved a bit for more compression. A header, universal high flow cat and 2 1/4" exhaust. All emissions intact. Well except the EGR port in the intake had a plug in it to keep the crud out of the intake. I forgot to take it out once for emissions test and it still passed. I ran a quality timing chain and steel guides. I got my 88 up to 100 on I-10 a couple times running 5.29 gears and 35" tires.

I know LC Engineering has a lot of hop up parts but, I never had that kind of budget back then. Good luck with your build.

Scott

wow that 22re you built must have had some pep to do 100mph on 35's! I doubt mine could do that with stock gears and 31's.

Yeah I have bought some parts from LC Engineering, they have alot of performance parts, but I am pretty budget oriented myself. I saw they even carry superchargers for the 22R/RE...i actually did some interior door panels for a guy that was resto-modding a 81' toyota and he added a supercharger to his 22R and topped it witha Holley Sniper EFI...he said it scoots down. the road pretty good!

 

[rustED71]

Time for a update...with more drama, lol. So I got the motor reassembled. Had it running and was letting all the condensation (from the previously blown head gasket) clear out of the exhaust...keeping an eye on the temperature and oil pressure gauges. Once the exhaust cleared out I took it for a little test drive. The motor at this point was purring like a kitten. I drove a couple miles down the road and turned around. On my way back to the house the motor started missing and the miss got continuously worse. When I got it back to the house, I was hoping for something simple that I over looked like maybe the distributor bolt was loose or something. No such luck. My uncle was helping me and has worked on alot of these motors. We pulled the valve cover off and notice some black grit underneath the cam. Two exhaust lobes on the cam were showing noticeable wear. So we pulled the rocker assembly to inspect it. The #3 and #4 exhaust rockers were seized on the rocker shaft. We were able to dissassemble most of the rocker assembly just to inspect it further but never could get the #3 exhaust rocker off the shaft, not even with heat and using the press! The only thing we could think of is that when I dropped off the rocker assembly and had it hot tanked they must not have dissassembled it. It looked nice and clean from the outside but when we disassembled it, it looked dirty inside. We are thinking that dirt and contaminated oil from the heads gasket failure must have plugged up the oiling holes in the rocker arm shafts starving the rockers of oil?...

So I have ordered a new cam, new rocker assembly from LCE Performance (with their pro rocker shafts) and just to be on the safe side i got a new Aisin oil pump (even tho im sure the old one was good.) I will be installing a new head gasket (again) I think I will be ok to reuse the new-ish head bolts...they have maybe 30 minutes running time on them...I need to get a new intake manifold gasket tomorrow and a set of feeler gauges so I can set the valves. Whats your guys thoughts on this plan? Im planning to do .007 and .011 cold valve adjustment and then go back and re-adjust them hot after running the engine to the standard .008 and .012. Any comments or opinions are welcome and appreciated.

because everyone likes pics, here is one that shows the difference between a stock rocker arm shaft and one of LCE's pro rocker arm shafts...i figure the more oiling holes the better!

 

[D21FJ60]

Time for the vortec swap

 

[aztoyman]

The machine shop just dipped the parts it sounds like. They may have assumed that you would take them apart, clean/inspect. Anyway, too late now.

I always adjusted my valves at .007 and .011 just because they ran a bit quieter and I never had an issue doing it. Over 450 K miles on two of my engines. I did check it when it was really hot once because people said I was crazy. I don't remember the lash but it was good. Ask 10 mechanics, get 10 opinions. Just my personal experience and preference.

I never had an issue with the stock rocker assembly. I did have to replace the adjuster screws on a couple engines.

LCE parts sure won't hurt. Good luck with it. I hope you're trouble free from now on.

Oh, one thing that can bite you on your first run is air in the cooling system. Make SURE you burp it/vent it. Maybe you already know that.

I fill the cooling system slow with the T-stat elbow off the first time just to make sure. Others have their own way. Just make sure it's done.

 

[aztoyman]

Replacing the head gasket is the proper way and what I would do after all you've been through with this engine.

I have changed a few cams without doing the head gasket though. I drained the coolant. You still have the small bolt going into the timing chain cover and the weight of the manifolds and such hanging on it. I use spacers and the head bolts to bolt it down after I removed the rocker shafts.

Think about how stuck the head gasket is after it's been run. It's not as risky as you would think. I know a few of you are probably thinking I'm full of it or a hack. But I've done at least 5 without incident. That's a lot of saved labor. These were also fairly fresh rebuilds where friends wanted to swap cams. If there was ANY indication that the gasket broke loose I just had to keep pulling it apart.

If this was Pirate I'd be ready for the flaming.

 

[rustED71]

Time for the vortec swap

If I have anymore problems that's the direction this build is going to go, lol! And a SAS while I'm at it!

 

[rustED71]

The machine shop just dipped the parts it sounds like. They may have assumed that you would take them apart, clean/inspect. Anyway, too late now.

I always adjusted my valves at .007 and .011 just because they ran a bit quieter and I never had an issue doing it. Over 450 K miles on two of my engines. I did check it when it was really hot once because people said I was crazy. I don't remember the lash but it was good. Ask 10 mechanics, get 10 opinions. Just my personal experience and preference.

I never had an issue with the stock rocker assembly. I did have to replace the adjuster screws on a couple engines.

LCE parts sure won't hurt. Good luck with it. I hope you're trouble free from now on.

Oh, one thing that can bite you on your first run is air in the cooling system. Make SURE you burp it/vent it. Maybe you already know that.

I fill the cooling system slow with the T-stat elbow off the first time just to make sure. Others have their own way. Just make sure it's done.

yeah I blame myself for not disassembling and inspecting the oem rocker assembly before installing it. It was an expensive lesson but I learned from it! I already have another new head gasket in my parts stash, so I will be installing that. And I will make sure to burp the cooling system also. Thanks for sharing your experience, I just dont want to screw anything up this time!

 

[rustED71]

So after getting everything reassembled and changing the oil & filter (using a toyota 90915-YZZD1 filter and 5qts of conventional oil) I removed the coil wire and cranked the engine waiting for it to build oil pressure. I did this 4 or 5 times probably cranking the engine over for 15 sec or so and never did get oil pressure. So I went ahead and put the coil wire on and fired it up and let it run for maybe 30 sec and still no oil pressure. I installed a brand new Aisin oil pump. I have heard that people use vaseline to prime the oil pump, but i didnt have any so I used some Lucas TB Zinc-Plus engine break-in additive. It is thicker than oil but not as thick (and sticky) as the Permatex Ultra Slick engine assembly lube. So maybe that might be my problem?... I tried grounding out the wire to the oil pressure gauge and it works, the only other thing I could think of was that I had a bad oil pressure sending unit. Sense mine was 30 yrs old I went ahead and ordered a new one and installed it. (I bought it from 22RE Performance $63, not a cheap Chinese knock off)...anyway after installing the new sending unit it still isnt reading any oil pressure. I am running out of ideas... I have time off work this week so I am planning on pulling the oil pump back off, double check orientation of the gears and make sure i installed them correctly with the arrows facing out. I will also inspect the drive gear for any wear and make sure it is properly engaging with the oil pump gears. Then I will pack it with vaseline and reinstall. Has anybody else ever have this problem? Im open to any advice or suggestions...thanks

-Eddie

 

[pappy]

Has anybody else ever have this problem? Im open to any advice or suggestions...thanks

-Eddie

Interesting. I have nothing. I just replaced the oil pump on my 22re and didn't have any issues. I didn't do anything special and installed the pump dry.

 

[rustED71]

Interesting. I have nothing. I just replaced the oil pump on my 22re and didn't have any issues. I didn't do anything special and installed the pump dry.

yeah I am kinda at a loss...I was thinking of getting an aftermarket oil pressure gauge and install it and see what happens, I will have to research and see what kind of fittings I need to adapt one to the engine block...kind of a PITA because I live out in the sticks so I order everything online and end up waiting for parts...man I really want to get this thing going!

 

[aztoyman]

If you were starting out with a fresh rebuild I'd say make sure all your oil galley plugs are in. Oil pumps put out flow. Pressure builds because of resistance to flow. If a plug is missing or a bearing shell or some other part, you won't build much pressure.

If it was building pressure before you changed the pump, I'd suspect the pump you just put on. It's pretty basic so maybe check the relief? Is it assembled properly or stuck?