Digging into the 22RE

KidVermicious

KidVermicious

New member
I've never had my valve cover off before, so I thought I'd crack a new thread and document what I'm doing and seeing. The backstory, in case you missed it: just outside Helper I picked up some engine noise, a clatter that sounded like it was coming from the valve cover area and was RPM dependant. It was quiet at idle. It got worse when I tried to limp it to a local garage, and eventually seized on the side of the road. We got it to the shop and scoped the pistons, and saw what I think was damage on piston 3, but I've never gotten friendly with a piston before and so I'm going to find out for sure. It's home now, and since I'm not driving trails in Moab I've got a couple days on my hands to see what's what.

Valve cover off:
IMAG0466_zpsf7cf14c6.jpg~original

Everything is tight, no loose screws or nuts or anything. The .. lifters? Rockers? I don't know the term, a couple of the shiny arms across the top will slide against the springs and pop back where most of the others are tight and don't move, I'm guessing because they aren't touching the valves underneath them?

I have this much slack in the timing chain, seems like too much to me - should I be concerned?
IMAG0470_zps8896ac32.jpg~original


The plugs:
IMAG0467_zpsdc0dd5ff.jpg~original


Plugs two and three:
IMAG0469_zps262aee09.jpg
IMAG0468_zps40539c44.jpg~original


Plug three:
IMAG0465_zps2de33318.jpg~original


If you can't tell on the photos, the porcelain has been cracked and chipped away, and there's carbon buildup all over the plug. It looks to me like something smacked it - how long ago? How long would it take to build up that carbon? Has something been floating around that cylinder for awhile?

I'm headed back out to pull the head, I'll be back when I know more or when I get frustrated and throw my tools down. I'll be at this all weekend, so comments/suggestions/recommendations are warmly encouraged, and if you need to point and laugh you can do that too.
 
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This bolt right here, second from the back on the right:
DSCF0032_zps5e62cba2.jpg~original


... was dry and covered in deposits, compared to the rest of the bolts which were oily and smooth. This bolt is close to piston three. Is this telling me anything?
DSCF0031_zps1e000971.jpg~original


To my eye, the valve train looks great. Everything is intact and tight and shiny where it's supposed to be.
DSCF0033_zps29c060d4.jpg~original


In Jay's shop in Price, we couldn't rotate the engine at all with a wrench on the bolt on front of the timing gear. Now that the .. valve train (?) is off, I can rotate it prox 45-60 degrees either way before I run into resistance.
 
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KidVermicious said:
Unless a miracle happens and this is an easy fix, that's very likely.

So keep really good notes :D
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From the looks of the plugs you probably have a leaky head gasket or cracked or warped head. I've had to replace the head on my pickup twice and rebuild it once more due to leaks so I've had it all apart 3 times! The last time I didn't have to replace the head just sand down the top of the block and mating surface of the head with a belt sander and put in a new headgasket. It's not hard to do, just tedious and time consuming. Be sure you torque down the head bolts extra tight when you put it back together. Hopefully water didn't get down in the cylinders or you might have to take the pistons out of the block and hone the bores smooth. If you have any questions just ask.
 
4runnin83 said:
Sorry your ride is down Kid, but love the indepth write up.
Click to expand...

Thanks! It's good to have other folks looking over my virtual shoulder, and maybe this'll help somebody else down the road.

So now that I have the rockers off, I can rotate the motor maybe 40-60 degrees at the timing gear bolt. It wouldn't rotate at all before. There's that nasty slack in the timing chain. Maybe I skipped a tooth and the clatter was a piston smacking the crap out of a valve? That's the theory on my local board, anyway.

I'm still trying to work out what all I need to remove to get to the head. Rain is sapping my motivation, and FoG posting to the Moab thread isn't helping. :mad:


:D
 
That one single bolt being dry isn't a bad thing. When I took the head off of my engine about a month ago that bolt was dry too. Some of the head bolts share oil ports I think.

As for the slack in the timing chain, that's bad. There will be a little slack in the chain but not that much and especially not on that side of it. That side is where most of the tension on the chain should be. The slack should be on the other side where the chain tensioner is, there will be slack on the chain tensioner side because that tensioner runs off of oil pressure.

As for the noise that was rpm dependent, at this point I cannot really help you as to what that noise was. I will need to see more of the disassembled engine.

When your engine seized, what exactly happened? You were rolling down the road and your motor shut off and seized as you came to a stop or did the engine seize and force you to throw it into neutral to stop you from losing control of the vehicle?

I will make a guess and say that you threw something in your bottom end. IF the timing jumped a few teeth and the valves were smacking the pistons you would have noticed a HUGE lack in power when that tapping/knocking was going on. Plus, if the valves were hitting the pistons then something would have broken and gave way to that much force. I would think that you would have bent a valve or punched a hole in your piston(s) and still allow your engine to turn. But, this is all just a guess at this point.

Hopefully you can get a rebuild kit from engnbldr.com for under $300, do some work to the block and head and call it done for under $500.

If anything else, do your engine swap!!

Good luck!!
 
SV_Dude said:
When your engine seized, what exactly happened? You were rolling down the road and your motor shut off and seized as you came to a stop or did the engine seize and force you to throw it into neutral to stop you from losing control of the vehicle?
Click to expand...

Rolling at low speed trying to keep the RPMs low and even, the clatter got much worse, then went away, then came back for a second and the motor died - no sputter, no choking, it just died. I rolled to a stop dead stick, and when I turned the key to start it again it would try to crank but wouldn't turn.

The tensioner is on the left as you face the engine?

I would think that you would have bent a valve or punched a hole in your piston(s) and still allow your engine to turn.
Click to expand...

Which could explain the damage we think we saw on piston three when we stuck a scope in there. Maybe it knocked a chunk loose, and the chunk wedged somewhere to cause the motor to seize?

I need to get the head off. Still working on that.
 
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Yes, the tensioner is on the left as you face the engine (passenger side). Given what you said about how your engine died, it may have been the timing chain being very worn and it gave up and slipped your timing causing all of this.

Take more apart and post pics. Also, look at engnbldr.com and get prices for parts.
 
I might have a line on a 22R short block. I'd reuse my Compcams camshaft and order a Street head from engnbldr. Are my EFI bits pretty much plug and play on the 22R block, or would there be machining and other nasty work to have done?
 
Dark and raining and cold, I'm done for the day. I got the fan and pullies and water pump out of the way, and disconnected the bolts on the upper manifold. Still need to disconnect it from the exhaust, then I can start on the intake crap.

Are there a couple bolts hiding somewhere that I can pull the whole mess of intake stuff in one go, or am I going to have to disassemble that thing in layers?
 
KidVermicious said:
Dark and raining and cold, I'm done for the day. I got the fan and pullies and water pump out of the way, and disconnected the bolts on the upper manifold. Still need to disconnect it from the exhaust, then I can start on the intake crap.

Are there a couple bolts hiding somewhere that I can pull the whole mess of intake stuff in one go, or am I going to have to disassemble that thing in layers?
Click to expand...

Pull the 6 bolts off of the upper intake plenum and pull it out of the way. Get the wiring harness, fuel line and coolant lines off of the lower intake plenum. Then you'll have I think 8-10 bolts for the lower intake plenum. It's a fairly easy job but it can be a pain when the elements are irritating you.
 
Bummer dude.

Cant wait to see what happened. Timing chain guides blew up maybe and are stuck causing it not to turn over?
 
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