Timing chain issue (1 Viewer)

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GatorPlater

Professional Electroplating for Vintage Toyotas
SILVER Star
Joined
May 16, 2010
Threads
16
Messages
352
Location
Fl.
94'
Stupid interstate battery was dead, so went to Costco to replace it. Truck has been sitting for a couple of weeks, so check oil level, fine there, went to start and it kicked over and then heard a ping/clang right after I heard the timing chain rattle before the tensioner gets oil pressure.
Truck has 427k on the motor, I have always done all the PM on it, replaced the leaking oil pump seal, front main, and power steering pump and hoses a couple of months ago.
So I am figuring the chain broke or the tensioner.
Here is the question:
Chain, new ratcheting tensioner, full head gasket kit, water pump( mine is the original) etc is about 750 for the parts. I can pull the head and replace all the valve seals, regrind valves, change out head gasket and intake / exhaust gaskets etc.
Should I just do the timing chain and front of engine components and not do head gasket or go ahead and rock that out while I am in there? And what kind of time is involved, I am a 4 Nana mechanic, can handle just about anything except for machining.
 
And is the head a zero clearance head or am am I fine with no chance of bent valves.
 
These are NOT interference engines.

I would consider replacing the timing chain tensioner.

Does the engine turn over by hand? It is stuck due to an actual broken timing chain?

How do you KNOW it's the timing chain?

Does it run at all?
 
Well, it cranks over and I can hear the flywheel turning with the bottom end, but no compression and I don't hear the top end making any noise, and no, won't start, just does the fast no compression cranking.
 
Well, it cranks over and I can hear the flywheel turning with the bottom end, but no compression and I don't hear the top end making any noise, and no, won't start, just does the fast no compression cranking.
Ugh.

Yeah, my next step would be the valve cover to see what I can see.

You're sure about NO compression? Run a compression test?

If the cams are stopped (fixed position) will have one cylinder that it will chug on as it should have compression and the rest do not. It will blow out through the intake or the exhaust.

Pull the fuel pump fuse and then crank it over for testing.
 
Timing service in terms of book time, 15 hours. If you're anywhere near the rust belt or an ocean, easily add 25% to the time. Unless you're in California, for some reason, nothing ever seizes there.

With 427k on the engine, there needs to be considerable precautions taken so that you're not wasting your money or time.

I would start with a compression test and a leak down test to determine exactly the health of the motor at this stage.

If everything checks out, then I would strongly considering getting all OE parts to bring that back up to good operating condition.
 
Going to pull the valve cover tomorrow. Not possible to do a compression check if the chain is broken, so I will go the replace tensioner first and check chain, see if it runs. If chain is broken, then replace that and get it running. I have been thinking about doing the head gasket anyway, so when I get it running, I will check compression and go from there. It is one of the good ones from an engine perspective, no major issues, head gasket never done. She is a good truck. She just got a 2" lift, new ARB front bumper, have the 4x4 labs rear bumper and new sliders also.
 
Going to pull the valve cover tomorrow. Not possible to do a compression check if the chain is broken, so I will go the replace tensioner first and check chain, see if it runs. If chain is broken, then replace that and get it running. I have been thinking about doing the head gasket anyway, so when I get it running, I will check compression and go from there. It is one of the good ones from an engine perspective, no major issues, head gasket never done. She is a good truck. She just got a 2" lift, new ARB front bumper, have the 4x4 labs rear bumper and new sliders also.
If the chain is broken, I think you're going to have to pull the head to get the timing cover off to get to the crank gear.

Yes, the timing cover can be removed with the head on it, but according to CDan, it's like a 22 man hour project and with the condition of this one, I wouldn't spend that time and effort if it looked like it needed it.

The other possibility is to buy an engine with 20K on the rebuild that all you have to do is swap.

Contact @slow95z for details ASAP.
 
yeah, i have a great engine i am sitting on
 
Well stand up. You aren't far from me, what do you need to part ways from the greatness?
 
The other possibility is to buy an engine with 20K on the rebuild that all you have to do is swap.

^^^^
With the mileage and symptoms the OP's engine is displaying....this would be the best solution....by far.
 
So, finally got around to fixing the 80 this week. Pulled out the timing chain tensioner and it was fine, piston was fine, and it squirted oil out everywhere. Shined a light in the hole and the chain was there so it did not look like a chain break.
Started with the normal test, took a look at all of the relays, the fuel pump relay when I jumped to the battery was working fine. I was getting intermittent spark from the coil so started taking all of the ignition components apart. The wire from the cap to the coil was really corroded on both ends. I replaced that and then pulled the distributor to change out the o- ring that had been leaking oil.
It just so happens that I had recently ordered cap, rotor, plug wires, plugs and decided to have a full-on party. All of the plug wires were really corroded where they went into the distributor cap. I pulled all of the plugs and I cannot remember the last time I changed them. It may have been about a hundred and fifty thousand miles ago. They were all extremely corroded and full of scaling around all of the electrodes. I really don't know how the truck was running.
I put in all the new plugs, routed all the new NGK plug wires to the new cap And tried to start the truck. It would still not kick over. When I pulled the distributor to change out the O-ring I had slipped my foot on the bumper and the rotor had turned probably 10 degrees. I set the crank to TDC and put the rotor on number one and tried to start it again. It would still not run.
I pulled the cap again, pulled out the distributor and turned the rotor 180 degrees. Then tried to start it again and it fired up. I threw the timing light on the crank and got it to 3°. It is now running like a champ.
I guess the noise i had initially heard was the engine finally telling me to give it some damn spark through all of the carbon build-up.
Needless to say, in my 10 minutes of road test after that , it was running incredibly smooth, and it's pickup was way better than it had been for a while. I had been letting One of my employees drive the truck and had been kind of ignoring the p.m. on it. So the next few things I will do are going to be to front and rear axle service, finish up recovering the driver side middle row and Welding together the 4X4 Labs rear bumper. I also have the sliders to put on and then new tires. I will throw up a new tread in the next couple of weeks.
Currently I am still working on my 73' 40, and my 100 is at Toyota since they screwed up the water pump timing belt change and the fan exploded when it hit the fan shroud that was loose.. Luckily, fans are on nation-wide backorder and the truck has been sitting there for 8 days now.
And on a personal note, not cool when your wife says 'you have four cars and none of them work, WTF' ( and I am driving her '06 sequoia as she just got a '21 yukon ::vomit:: )
 
Glad that worked out.

Would it have also worked and been easier than the valve cover to just pull the distributor cap to check for top end movement while cranking when you suspect a timing chain break?

Good question for @BILT4ME

Am I having a brain fart or would that work? A lot easier than the valve cover to remove, and rotor shouldn’t spin without a timing chain turning the cams.
 
Glad that worked out.

Would it have also worked and been easier than the valve cover to just pull the distributor cap to check for top end movement while cranking when you suspect a timing chain break?

Good question for @BILT4ME

Am I having a brain fart or would that work? A lot easier than the valve cover to remove, and rotor shouldn’t spin without a timing chain turning the cams.
Yes, that would absolutely work.

The distributor is driven by a gear attached to the front end of the camshaft and the timing chain gear.
 
So, finally got around to fixing the 80 this week. Pulled out the timing chain tensioner and it was fine, piston was fine, and it squirted oil out everywhere. Shined a light in the hole and the chain was there so it did not look like a chain break.
Started with the normal test, took a look at all of the relays, the fuel pump relay when I jumped to the battery was working fine. I was getting intermittent spark from the coil so started taking all of the ignition components apart. The wire from the cap to the coil was really corroded on both ends. I replaced that and then pulled the distributor to change out the o- ring that had been leaking oil.
It just so happens that I had recently ordered cap, rotor, plug wires, plugs and decided to have a full-on party. All of the plug wires were really corroded where they went into the distributor cap. I pulled all of the plugs and I cannot remember the last time I changed them. It may have been about a hundred and fifty thousand miles ago. They were all extremely corroded and full of scaling around all of the electrodes. I really don't know how the truck was running.
I put in all the new plugs, routed all the new NGK plug wires to the new cap And tried to start the truck. It would still not kick over. When I pulled the distributor to change out the O-ring I had slipped my foot on the bumper and the rotor had turned probably 10 degrees. I set the crank to TDC and put the rotor on number one and tried to start it again. It would still not run.
I pulled the cap again, pulled out the distributor and turned the rotor 180 degrees. Then tried to start it again and it fired up. I threw the timing light on the crank and got it to 3°. It is now running like a champ.
I guess the noise i had initially heard was the engine finally telling me to give it some damn spark through all of the carbon build-up.
Needless to say, in my 10 minutes of road test after that , it was running incredibly smooth, and it's pickup was way better than it had been for a while. I had been letting One of my employees drive the truck and had been kind of ignoring the p.m. on it. So the next few things I will do are going to be to front and rear axle service, finish up recovering the driver side middle row and Welding together the 4X4 Labs rear bumper. I also have the sliders to put on and then new tires. I will throw up a new tread in the next couple of weeks.
Currently I am still working on my 73' 40, and my 100 is at Toyota since they screwed up the water pump timing belt change and the fan exploded when it hit the fan shroud that was loose.. Luckily, fans are on nation-wide backorder and the truck has been sitting there for 8 days now.
And on a personal note, not cool when your wife says 'you have four cars and none of them work, WTF' ( and I am driving her '06 sequoia as she just got a '21 yukon ::vomit:: )
So.....How did you determine earlier that you had "no compression"?

There is a lot of the troubleshooting tree that got skipped over.
Of course, we can only move forward with the information you give, and you seemed very certain of no compression, which leads to all kinds of catastrophic issues.

Since we don't know your mechanical skills and tests done, we must assume you have some idea what you're talking about.

I watched a guy tear apart his 3FE because he was convinced he had a head gasket problem due to what he read on here. He didn't follow the proper troubleshooting procedure and jumped to conclusions.
 
Yes, that would absolutely work.

Cool. I’ll remember that, although I would think if the chain did break it would likely wad up at the crank and blow out the aluminum front cover and be pretty hard to miss.

But idk I’ve never seen a timing chain break, just belts.
 
Built4me, I surmised there was no compression based on how fast the starter was turning the engine and no even stutter of a start. I am an old Honda tuner, have had more of the B series Engines than I can count. In my 'diagnosing' via what it sounded like, it was exactly like a Honda motor sounds when the timing belt snaps and you get the fun of bent valves and no compression.
I am really glad I was wrong.
I did throw my compression tester into the cylinders and got good numbers, sorry I did not mention that in my diatribe explanation. I agree that proper testing trees should be followed as this makes sure you aren't throwing money at parts you don't need. I did cliff note my story, probobly should have included the testing I did that came back as 'working correctly, moving to next steps
Kind of like the moving distributor 180 instead of going through the TDC steps and then resetting it, I am sure that some of you guys were like ' wait whaaat??'
Working on cars is like 3d puzzles to me, love it most of the time, but trying to explain what I did to make things work sometimes makes peoples eyes roll into the back of their heads..:)

Here is a pic of the plugs.

20210305_103959.jpg
 
Built4me, I surmised there was no compression based on how fast the starter was turning the engine and no even stutter of a start. I am an old Honda tuner, have had more of the B series Engines than I can count. In my 'diagnosing' via what it sounded like, it was exactly like a Honda motor sounds when the timing belt snaps and you get the fun of bent valves and no compression.
I am really glad I was wrong.
I did throw my compression tester into the cylinders and got good numbers, sorry I did not mention that in my diatribe explanation. I agree that proper testing trees should be followed as this makes sure you aren't throwing money at parts you don't need. I did cliff note my story, probobly should have included the testing I did that came back as 'working correctly, moving to next steps
Kind of like the moving distributor 180 instead of going through the TDC steps and then resetting it, I am sure that some of you guys were like ' wait whaaat??'
Working on cars is like 3d puzzles to me, love it most of the time, but trying to explain what I did to make things work sometimes makes peoples eyes roll into the back of their heads..:)

Here is a pic of the plugs.

View attachment 2603940
Thanks for the explanation. From your description, it appeared you have done a fair amount of work on engines and why I didn't question the "no compression" statement.

However, that can mislead the group as to what direction the diagnosis takes. For those that do a fair amount of work, we need to make sure we are clear, as this forum is frequented by a lot of folks in the early stages of their wrench turning and they need to understand what they are reading.

Here, we were ready for you to pull your engine apart, when all it needed was maintenance.

That's why we all PREACH baselining and Preventive Maintenance.
 
Built4me, I surmised there was no compression based on how fast the starter was turning the engine and no even stutter of a start. I am an old Honda tuner, have had more of the B series Engines than I can count. In my 'diagnosing' via what it sounded like, it was exactly like a Honda motor sounds when the timing belt snaps and you get the fun of bent valves and no compression.
I am really glad I was wrong.
I did throw my compression tester into the cylinders and got good numbers, sorry I did not mention that in my diatribe explanation. I agree that proper testing trees should be followed as this makes sure you aren't throwing money at parts you don't need. I did cliff note my story, probobly should have included the testing I did that came back as 'working correctly, moving to next steps
Kind of like the moving distributor 180 instead of going through the TDC steps and then resetting it, I am sure that some of you guys were like ' wait whaaat??'
Working on cars is like 3d puzzles to me, love it most of the time, but trying to explain what I did to make things work sometimes makes peoples eyes roll into the back of their heads..:)

Here is a pic of the plugs.

View attachment 2603940
Still learning to read "plug".
What's the crud on plugs 3 and 4? Did the latent PM cause that?
And did your corrective actions resolve? (other than just changing the plugs)
 

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