Cam gears for V6. Add power AND mpg

Great, hopefully once I am ready to verify timing and put the cams on!!!

 

Go for it, John. It's not hard to do.

Take your time, label everything you remove/disconnect and re-assemble in reverse order. Make sure the new gears are fully seated on the camshaft before tightening the bolts.

If your engine is dirty, wash it first (give everything a day to dry before pulling it apart.)

The results are worth it!

 

The only real difference I've noticed is my truck starts no matter what on the first try after my battery has been disconnected. That's really all I've noticed /shrug

 

Thanks Scott. Most major surgery I've ever attempted on my truck. Had power washing truck on the list of things to do before hand and been reviewing copious notes/videos I have downloaded Buying a few more items like PCV valve, spark plugs and grommets for the top of the valve covers. Priced the grommets and PCV valve on Rockauto and adds up to about $20. Then they want $10-$20 to ship to have here in a reasonable time! Time to look elsewhere. OEM are around $7 each for the gaskets.

 

I didn't mean power washing the engine. High pressure water can into places you don't want it to if you are not careful.

I spray things down with Simple Green (usually a 1:1 ratio), let it sit for a few minutes, then spray it off with the garden hose.

 

Sounds good to me and will do that. Not looking forward to power washing with temps starting to drop. Going to post a few questions later if you want to chime in.

 

This is just an aside but I don't wash/rinse the engine bay in autumn/winter seasons. Trapped moisture can dwell for many many days in cold / damp weather.

On a hot summer day, with the hood left up for a few hours, esp. in the sun, after a rinsing the engine bay will be bone-dry in every nook and cranny within a few hours.

 

Well don't plan to wait for summer. Gale winds and absolutely poured down rain today also. Engine bay isn't too dirty so will take another look and make a judgement call. Do have a big two car garage and a 45,000btu heater that should dry it out. Appreciate your pointing that out though.

 

I operate on the premise that the only dumb question is the one you don't ask so got a couple of questions before I start this next week:

1. The thread said in a few places you might have to turn the engine up to about 30 times to have the timing line up right. Am assuming this means you might have to turn it that many times in order to get the timing marks on the cams and the crankshaft mark to all line up on the marks. Is that correct?
2. This was one of the comments on the thread. Picture of what he was referring to is posted below but for the life of me I cannot see what the arrows are pointing at. Conducted some searches for the connector but still in the dark. Can someone post a few close ups of what he is referring to?: In an effort to gain as much free movement of the wiring harness as I could, I unhooked the ocv/vvt connectors. In hindsight, don't touch the damn things unless you have to! Upon start up I immediately threw a P0010 code. Cleared it and I think it was back before I even released the "clear codes" button. I wound up cracking...like, BARELY cracking the sensor's connector. It wasn't unclipping easily and wiggling it a little bit was enough to do damage. I put a tester on it to check continuity and got nothing, however I do not really know if it needs power to it to properly test it. The thing looked brand new too.

3. Does the Permatex only have to go over the two small gaps near the front of each cylinder head not around the entire perimeter as the diagram below indicates? From all the videos I've seen it just takes a small amount on the gaps. Think the diagram might have been for an earlier Tacoma.



Appreciate your help!

 

1- been a while but i think 8 turns off the motor will get the cam chain marks lined up. The chain will only line up with those marks every 30 or so turns. It's not necessary but can help increase confidence if you're worried.

2. He's talking about the vvti sensors- some engine knock sensors are near them too. Some people have broke them removing the electrical connection. Use careful hands.

3- about an inch of the permatex where the front cover meets the heads is all you need. Regardless of the year of the 1grfe

 

So if the cam chain marks are all lined up I am good to go?

 

Ya- that should do it. Removing the cam bolt should show a timing mark on the gear facing the painted link.

 

Me, personally, I ignore the paint marks on the chains and just use the timing marks on the sprockets themselves. The paint marks on the chains are really only needed when installing the chains and not when verifying timing after install. When I installed my sprockets, I turned the engine over a couple times and verified the timing marks on the cam sprockets and crank all lined up and then buttoned it all up.

 

Thanks all! In the garage removing wiring for dual battery move before digging into engine.

 

OK, I'm there with removing everything. Couple of questions:
1. Have two indentations on the flywheel. Do they indicate anything?
2. Broke one of the locking mechanisms on this plug. Hope that won't cause any issues.

So guess at this point I just start rotating the engine till everything lines up?

 

1 indications mean nothing for this job. You should have a timing slit in it if you're trying to get timing by it but i don't recommend that method.
2. Fingers crossed it won't matter.
3. Yes- turn over till things line up.
4. Disconnect battery if you haven't yet

 

Battery definitely disconnected. Gonna start turning.

So how does this look?

 

John,
You are overthinking this.

Spin the motor to get the alignment mark on the cam gear up (as close as possible, to be easy to see and access) and mark the link at the alignment mark. Pull the stock gear, replace with the new gear, lining up the mark on the link with the alignment mark on the gear. You may need to "adjust" the cam position slightly (backwards) to accommodate the 3* retard of the new gear.

You're not retiming the engine, only replacing a gear - in the same position.

 

Yep. So if I advance the engine a bit more both of the dots should line up at the top (they are both in the same relative position), mark the links and insert new cam gears?

 

Advance till gear mark is on link. Mark the link. Then go for it