22re replace the headgasket or not

Post by **alk1174** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 1:22 pm

I am planning to pull the 22re from a friends truck to fix oil leaks coming from the front of the motor as well as a new radiator and possibly a clutch. I figured while we are at it we might as well replace the timing chain, water pump, and oil pump. The question is do we do the headgasket while its out. Other than leaks there seems to be no problems with the motor. At first I was thinking go ahead and do it while you have it apart but after talking to McNinney awhile I am thinking otherwise. I Spoke to Engnbldr who I am getting the parts form and he seemed to be in the middle of the road. Anyone here have any input? This could all change once we get the motor out and see what other problems we have.

Post by **Arya Ebrahimi** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 3:12 pm

Yes, CHANGE IT! It was a PITA to do in the truck, and if you're already gonna have the timing cover off, there's no reason not too. You have to pull the valve cover and rockers to get the timing cover off, so all that's really left is the head bolts. They're considered one-time use bolts, so make sure you get new ones.

Toyota sells a pretty comprehensive kit for it if memory serves. I might even go so far as to have the head checked and replace the valve guides/seals. I did on mine cause the head was warped, but if you knock this stuff out now, you'll have nothing to worry about for a long time.

Post by **Stinson** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 3:22 pm

Have you determined where the oil leak is from? The front crank seal is a very common leak and will spray oil all over the front of the motor and its hard to tell where the hell its coming from. If it is sprayed up on the underside of the hood its a good chance it is that. Then I wouldn't pull the motor, but I would pull the valve cover and check the guides to make sure they are still there. Unless you are getting paid to do all this work I don't really see the need to pull the motor.

Post by **alk1174** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 3:46 pm

Ary
Thanks for the input I will keep this in mind.

Stinson
I agree I dont want to pull the motor and we may not end up pulling it after I get some inspection time but I want to be prepared for whatever. It seems there could be a couple of places that are leaking. The front of the motor is soaked in oil but the underside of the hood is clean. There is RTV squishing out of every sealing surface on the front of the motor and with out a good bit of inspection time I dont know for sure what all is leaking. We went ahead and ordered a complete seal and gasket kit along with a timing set, water pump and oil pump because I only have a limited time to help out and do not want to spend forever chasing down parts. I do owe him a big favor so I am not worried about the work and amount of time I just want it done right and figured if you have to pull a lot of stuff off the front of the motor you might as well pull it and take care of everything.

Post by **Fonger** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 10:33 pm

Go ahead and pick yourself up a can of Hi-Tack (sp?) from Permatex. You can get it at about any auto parts store. It's great for holding gaskets onto gasket surfaces and acts as a sealer too without the squish out crap of RTV. Beware when you pull the head things get a lot more involved. Really once you pull the head you should send it to a machine shop to make sure its square. The guy I had do all my machine work for my 4Runner in Winchester told me that he's never seen a 22R or 22RE head that didn't need at least some material removed to get it back square. Just an FYI I had my head machined flat, new valve seals installed and checked for cracks for well under $200, I'm pretty sure it was around $150-$175. If you do decide to pull the head, just go ahead and get the rest of your stuff from engnbldr. All his parts are sweet. He'll tell you where to get whatever he doesn't have.

I'm on the Ary bandwagon as well. After now having pulled and re-installed a couple 22RE's myself for various reasons. Just put a head gasket on now. It's a million times easier with the motor on a stand. However, if your buddy is on a tight schedule/budget then maybe you should hold off. Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

Post by **alk1174** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:01 am

I talked it over with him last night a bit and I dont know if he is up to sending stuff off to the machine shop because right now there are no known problems with the mechanics of the motor. It was just installed poorly and has some leaks as well as some missing bolts and a lot of hacked and spliced wiring. It seems to me once you start down the road of getting things machined the costs go up quick and at that point I would do a full rebuild or get a remanned motor. Right now I am leaning towards leaving the head on but replacing the other seals as well as the timing set, oil and water pump and fixing the other problems we find.

Post by **alk1174** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:02 am

Ary did you do your headgasket with the motor still in the truck?

Post by **Arya Ebrahimi** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:54 am

alk1174 wrote:Ary did you do your headgasket with the motor still in the truck?

Yup, by myself without an engine hoist or anything. It was a PITA.

This is one of those cases where things tend to snowball. I think the biggest question would be how many miles are on the motor and how long he plans to keep it. If it's got over 150k and he plans to keep it a while I'd say spend the ~$300 to do the headgasket while you've got it all apart. All of my valve seals were shot(180k on the motor). Replacing them and the guides cleared up 90% of the blue smoke coming out my exhaust.

FYI, removing the head makes doing all the timing chain/cover WAY EASIER cause you're not trying to work underneath the head through the radiator area if you do it in the truck. Also the top gasket for the timing chain cover is part of the headgasket, and although it's feasible to R&R the timing chain cover w/o damaging the head gasket, it's not an easy task.

Post by **alk1174** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:07 pm

Ary you bring up some good points. The mileage is unknown the motor is around 10 years old so I would assume over 100k. How long will he keep it? Dont know. It does not smoke and has good compression. I think first thing will be to pull the oil pan and see if anything is floating around and go from there. It has a lift so this should be pretty easy.

Post by **alk1174** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 5:03 pm

I only took about 2 minutes of staring at the engine to realize it needed to come out. There was oil seeping out from where the timing cover and head come together and after pulling it we found the rear main seal was bad and the seal retainer had no gasket material at all. The trans had a mix of bolt types and some missing bolts. The intake manifold gasket had been reused and was leaking. And most every seal was questionable. The radiator was bad and the exhaust manifold is cracked. The good was we found nothing mechanically wrong with the motor. We decided to replace the head gasket but decided not to have it machined. The head gasket that was on there was in good shape and a rough check with a straight edge showed no noticable warpage we did get new bolts, the old ones had already been reused. We figured we were about to start down a path where if we get the head reworked we should also do the bottom end and we were only trying to stop leaks not fix a bum motor so we called it there.
The engnbldr parts kit is excellent. We got a complete seal kit as well as water pump, oil pump, and timing chain. Every imaginable gasket is in there. Hopefully we can get it back in next weekend and everything will be good to go. His customer service is also excellent. I would recommend him to anyone working on a 22r.

Post by **alk1174** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:27 am

Quick question. Is oily gassy residue in the intake runners a bad sign? It is enough to wet your finger. Just clean it out and move on? That is the plan for now.

Post by **Stinson** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 12:42 pm

it is prolly just from the crank case vent tube. When there is to much blow by the rings the oil will become vaporized and vent out and usually it is dumped back into the intake to be re-burned (emissions BS) Some oily buildup in the intake is normal.

Post by **MtnToys** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:37 am

There was black goo caked all inside the intake on my 4runner. Like stinson said, the PCV and ERG are probably the cause.

Post by **alk1174** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:08 pm

Thanks guys. It was not a lot but just enought to make me wonder and with the broken up intake gasket it made a little mess around the head.

Post by **alk1174** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:26 am

Well after a long weekend of watching football mixed with wrenching the motor is back in as of about 6:00 last night. Hit the key and it cranked for a second and kind of fired up. Rotated the distributor and got it running. Tried to set the timing and something seems off. The timing seems erratic even when I jump the diagnostic ports. Finally got it timed to 5 BTDC drove it down the road and I thought everything was ok. Parked it did some cleaning in the driveway and then it would not start back. So I gave up for the night. After thinking about it I realized we loosened the gas cap to prevent gas from running out of the lines while we were working. Would this cause problems? It is my understanding that if you are off one tooth on the chain the engine would not run well at all. Does this sound right? We checked it a ton of times and even hand cranked the motor to see if the marks would realign and also that the valves would not collide and everything checked out. I am jut paranoid now. I guess I just need some time to get it figured out. I was pretty tired and frustrated last night.
After researching I think I need to check the TPS. The throttle body was nasty over 1/8" of buildup on the back of the throttle plate we cleaned it up trying not get the TPS wet but it could have gotten trash in it hopefully its not dead.

Makes me like my 26 year old carb. It might give me a little trouble starting sometimes but if I would rebuild it that would probably go away.