The Adventures of Ash and Baby Taco

I cut the fender liners out of the truck to make 35's fit. That means I sucked mud, water, rocks and dust into my air intake. I replaced the liner with one I made but there is evidence of it being sucked up still. They would warranty the work if they found no trace of dirt or water in the engine. However, if there is a tiny bit of proof that something could have entered the engine I would have to pay 100% out of pocket. Something I am not quite willing to do with dealership pricing.

 

Today was a blast! The gf and I went snow shoeing with a few friends. I took Ash. You can tell he has been cooped up! It was a shorter loop, about 2 miles total, but we saw a couple moose and Ash had tons of hills to run up and down. He is going to be exhausted for a few days at a minimum.

 

Have you done the valve seals yet? When you are driving is there smoke coming out right from the start or does it stay steady as you go?

 

Only at the start and then if I let it idle for a bit.

 

Ahhhh okay hopefully the valve seal replacements will fix it then! I was gonna say if it continues while driving it could be the piston rings. Goodluck!

 

Today it starts! Picked up the valve seals. The valve gasket replacement should be at Toyota, and my tools arrive sometime.

Printing out everything I need and organizing the garage until everything shows up. Pretty excited to have something to do.

And yes, the camera battery is charging.

 

Wait a minute.....




You're gonna take......






























PICTURES?!?!

 

Lol, yes. Because if I screw up, I am relying on the members here to be like "wait, you're a fucking idiot" before I run the engine haha.

 

Just cause he's gonna take em doesn't mean he'll post em...haha

 

True, we will see. Everything else I have done already had a write up so I didn't feel bad if I didn't post pictures on how I did something. I also have nothing to do with my life currently so the odds are that I will take the time to upload them .

 

The tools came in late so all I did was a compression test. 120psi on the first 3 and 90 psi on the 4th. No increase with the addition of oil.

 

Valve cover is off! What a pain in the butt that was . Lunch time and then back to work.

 

Well, after the valve cover things slowed down, wayyyyyy down. I spent quite a bit of time familiarizing myself with all the visible parts and manually cranking the engine to see how everything moves. It's crazy how simple these things are! I finished the night with getting the engine at TDC on the compression stroke and checking the timing marks. Everything looks good!

Tomorrow I have to remove the timing chain first. I have been reading up on that and I think I need an extra hand to make sure everything goes smoothly. Hopefully I can get someone to hold the chain tight while everything is removed. If not I might be in for more work than I want. So far everything has been pretty easy to do aside from physically removing the valve cover. I am hoping to finish tomorrow but who knows, I am not exactly in a rush to get this done.

 

I'm visualizing this in my mind .... Looks good so far

 

Ah have to remove the chain to get the cam shalfs off eh? Use a good pen to mark shit and it'll be fine. Also, when you remove the cam shalfs and there will be the covers for the valves, make sure you put the EXACT same one back in the EXACT same hole. There are shims on them to make them touch the cams just right. You don't want to have to figure out which one goes where.

 

Yep, I wasn't prepared to mess with the chain but I should have known. I have ice cube trays already labeled to keep all the site specific parts organized . I am trying to Gage proof this as best as possible .

 

Best of luck to you and Ash.

 

Any ideas on how to easily retain tension on the timing chain when removing the camshafts to keep it from coming loose on the crankshaft sprocket? Any idea of how much tension is needed?

 

Maybe pinch it together with a pair of vise grips and somehow wedge a long screw driver against the pinch point to put upward tension? Or pull the chain tight towards the top and clamp each side of the timing chain to its respective side of the timing cover?

 

Alright, I have a friend coming to help me out so hopefully I can have the camshafts out shortly. I am attempting to take pictures the best I can but in a low lit garage, with cramped spaces...not really working out the best.