need advise

[jatibb]

need advise, and no i dont wanna sell it. my son sold his 240sx that was really reliable but he wanted a truck. to go "4timesfouring" as he jokingly calls it. he bought a .. think of a johnny cash song here" .. what we think is a 84 toyota with a 22r, solid axle, 86 body, .... bastard.
when i went with him to look at it , lots of noises coming from everywhere. he really wanted it, i told him it needed LOTS of work but id help him. he's 18. first was the driveshaft bearing, 2 pc driveshaft. better now. next was the timing chain, lots of racket. when we dissassembled it ,it had a double row chain, someone told him that was from 82 or older? anyway we swapped it out, during the process we figured out the water pump was wrong, but worked. completed assy. and fired up. now we can here knocking in the bottom end. when turning distributor the knocking comes and goes at idle depending on where the dist. is set, at 2000rpm knocking always there.
maybe we're reaching but could knocking be oil pump, we cleaned and greased and filled it b4 reassy, or could timimg be out of whack enough to cause knocking? possibly need to reset dist. one tooth over. seems to run best when dist. is turned to max all the way up. broken timing light has kept us from checking with "real" equip. but ive always been able to get close enough for testing w/out light. again he doesnt wanna sell it although it probably does need to go away. he really likes it. solid axle,5 spd, flat bed...

 

[ntsqd]

Used to be possible to buy a double row timing chain kit for the single row engines. I wouldn't put a huge amount of faith in that.
Are you sure that you got the timing chain aligned correctly? Sounds like the distributor could be off by a tooth or two.

If it has acceptable oil pressure then the oil pump should be fine. I take it that you didn't notice any excessive wear in the oil pump drive sleave on the crank?

Ignition Timing: Turn the crank to the desired ignition timing point as indicated on the crank pulley. Inspect the distributor; directly under the rotor you will see a piece of metal that is cross shaped. That is the reluctor. Somewhere around the outside of the reluctor that is a glob of plastic encased coiled wire. That is the pick-up coil. In the center of the coil there is a piece of steel of roughly the same size and shape as each of the tips of the reluctor.
Turn the distributor body until the nearest reluctor tip is 1/2 of the tip width PAST the piece of steel in the center of the pick-up coil. This will put the timing surprisingly close to where it should be.

 

[madizell]

It isn't at all uncommon for the Toyota engine of that vintage to have a replaced timing chain by this point. If someone has been mixing and matching parts, it can get confusing because the earlier and later engines, although nearly identical, do have different timing components which don't really swap back and forth. Sounds like you have that part sorted.

Knocking is a broad term. Don't set the timing according to the degree of knocking present. The timing should be right. When it is, if it still knocks something else is the culprit.

I doubt it is the oil pump as the pump is not a reciprocating device, but a rotor pump. With the engine running, any slack in the distributor drive end should be taken up by rotational force. As mentioned, if the pressure is good, the pump is bound to be good as well since that's where the pressure comes from.

However, you could have good pressure and still have one or more bad rod bearings. Set the timing as described above or, if you have the equipment and a good reference book, set it electronically and leave it be. If you hear a knock, try to locate it specifically, cylinder for cylinder, or front to back, top to bottom. Get a good auto stethoscope from NAPA or anywhere convenient and listen around for the source of the knock. If it is the "bottom end" of the motor, and if it is a medium to deep knock, as opposed to a high tick, it will usually be bearings.

If this is the case, pull the oil pan and one at a time, remove the rod bearing caps and inspect the bearings and crank journals. Just run each rod to the bottom of its stroke, and unbolt the cap. As long as the journals are not badly scored, new bearings can be installed easily, and even if the current bearings look okay, now is a good time to replace them. Don't remove all the caps at one time because with the rods loose, rotating the crank gets to be a nightmare of interfering parts. Just do one rod at a time, then go to the next.

The main bearings can also be inspected, one journal at a time, but replacing the main bearings is more tedious because the upper bearing half on the mains is trapped against the block and has to be extracted carefully, and the new bearing rolled into place, also very carefully. It can be done, but if you hear a knock from a lower end bearing, it is usually a rod, not a main. Anyway, taking a look at the bearings costs little enough and is not that hard to do.

I tend to suspect the rod bearings because of the way you described the issue, that is, if you adjust the timing from retarded to advanced, the knock tends to come and go. Keep in mind that as you advance timing (toward "before top dead center") you will be causing the spark to occur sooner and sooner, while the piston is still rising toward the top of its stroke. The concussion of combustion against a rising piston causes a counter-posed force on the piston assembly which, if the rod bearing is worn out, will cause the rod to "knock" back against the crankshaft, by taking the slack out of the bearing or causing the rod to bounce on the crank. When timing is retarded, the concussion against the rising piston is reduced, and the knock goes down or goes away. As the bearing wears further, you will hear a knock whether or not the timing is advanced or retarded because the rod and piston will continue to travel upward while the crank turns around and starts down, causing the same knock. By this time, new bearings are a must, and the crank may be damaged to the point that new bearings won't do you any good. Best to check and catch this problem before it gets worse.

 

[JubeP]

Hey coming out of lurker mode to post this, it's probably not very common, but I have actually had an oil pump go bad on a 22RE and it sounded almost exactly like a rod knock, coming from the same area too! Took us forever to find the culprit, the way we ruled out the rod bearings was by pulling plug wires one at a time, usually you can hear it go away when you disable the bad cylinder if it's a rod bearing. It's been a while but if I remember right the drive gear to the oil pump is splined to the crankshaft, what happened in my case, the oil pressure was still good, pump was working OK and everything, but the splines on the gear were worn out, causing it to rattle around under load. Cheap aftermarket pump, who knows. Not saying thats the problem your having, just throwing it out there, a bad oil pump CAN make a hell of a lot of noise (like to where you're thinking you need a rebuild or your engines gonna start spitting out parts thru the oilpan) and still check out OK as far as pressure, it's a real PITA to diagnose too!

 

[JubeP]

Oh, and listen to madizell, he obviously knows what he's talking about. Also, the double row timing chain is/ used to be considered an upgrade .I'm not sure on the specifics of why, but I think LC engineering used to sell kits to do the swap...

 

[jatibb]

thanks for the info, all of ya. ill keep ya posted if thats ok. im sure we will need more help. i frequent this sight and most of the people here are friendly,mature and helpful. some of the other sights if i had asked these questions there would have been 50 replies (opinions) from every 16-24 yr old that ever owned a 22r. the last answer i needed was " just buy an lc engineering motor" like to but $$$. i drive a 91 range rover myself and am trying to complete a sort of expedition trailer as time allows. currently sidetracked by a deck project. wife thinks the deck is more important, i told her if the trailer was done we'd be campin and wouldnt have to look at the ugly old deck.

 

[toyrunner95]

You know...... I have the same truck. The 84 and the 22r. Heres my diagnosis. Its the motor, i know shocking. just kidding.

Anyway it could be the head, like a valve knock or a bottom end rod knock.
Those are my two first ideas. My first instinct is to seriously re build the motor. If he wants to do any off road he will want fuel injection and you can put a TBI kit on it.

second replace all the odd parts with toyota parts. they are so well engineered that there is no point in aftermarket stuff. trust me, the more time you spend diagnosing the more you will want to rebuild it anyway. you can gget a 22re to rebuild for practically cheap after the hurricanes down there.

 

[JubeP]

It's pretty hard to diagnose something over the internet, I know you said the noise is coming from the bottom, but these engines have a pretty noisy valvetrain, especially if the lash is not adjusted right. would be more of a ticking coming from the valve cover. Just trying to rule out easy stuff before you jump into a rebuild... agree on using Toyota parts if you can, I have seen so many problems with aftermarket ignition junk, etc. I would probably trust Denso parts w/ 150K on them over new crap from Pep Boys. If you do decide to go with a rebuild, this guys got a pretty good rep in the yota community http://www.engnbldr.com/Build-A-Kit_85-95.html

 

[madizell]

The 22R is truly a noisy motor on the top end. Don't know I have ever heard a completely quite valve train. Locating noises in the engine by just leaning over and listening rarely works well. The engine is a sounding board that transmits various frequencies, sometime well and sometimes not. But since the motor is largely metal, a noise in one spot can sound in another. That's why I suggest a stethoscope. This will not only help you pinpoint the source of the noise, but also isolates noises you are listening to from general background noises, and helps greatly in hearing the actual frequency of the noise you are listening to. These are great diagnostic tools, and should not be expensive. You can always try the old screwdriver-in-the-ear trick, but sticking your head down inside the bay with a running motor can be scary, and the right tool beats backyard tricks every time.

Also, it sounds as if the oil pump can make a rattle noise, which I didn't expect, but even so, you should be able to isolate the noise with a good stethoscope. You will be surprised what you can hear inside the motor, and it will save you time in tearing things down that don't need to be torn down.

While you are at it, do a compression test to verify the health of the upper end generally. If you are going to need a major overhaul, I would look for a good donor motor or rebuilt block before trying to rebuild your old one, and if you need a replacement motor anyway, spending time chasing down knocks in the old one would be academic.

 

[madizell]

I asked one of my friends who has been working on Toyota trucks of the vintage you have regarding the oil pump, and whether it would make a knocking noise. He says when they start to go bad, they will hum, growl, or buzz, but he would not expect a knocking noise. Since the pump is external, if the noise is coming from the pump, you should be able to verify the source by listening to it with a stethoscope. Even though the drive gear is internal, it will be right there behind the pump and you should be able to isolate the sound.

 

[JubeP]

I guess I just got lucky... Like I said, the oil pump is most likely not his problem. I would not have expected a knocking noise either, in fact two of the master techs at the dealership I used to work at took a listen while it was up on the lift and were like, yod knock, yep rod knock. It was definately not a "Hum, Growl, Or Buzz" more like a metallic rattle. (LOL at trying to describe noises over the intarweb!! This mechanic I used to work with made it a point to try to get customers to describe the noises their cars were making, he could always keep a straight face, me not so much. pissed off a couple people that way!) If you think about it the gear that was rattling around is attached directly to the crank too, the stethoscope didn't really do us much good in this case, I guess it was resonating through the oil pan... I just thought I would throw it out there on a cool forum where it seems like there are people that are as obsessed with these old Yotas as I am... Oh yeah, I say it was lucky because I got a truck with a fresh rebuild that the owner sold out of frustration because the shop they took it to couldn't fix the knock!