Last month I had some fun replacing the head gasket and various related parts. The truck had a tiny coolant leak in one or two cilinders ever since I got it but it had beceome worse the weeks beforehand which made me decide to fix it. The only issue I ever noticed before though was having to add some coolant every week or two, occasionally it was harder to start. But near the end the idling was "wobbly" and there was some white smoke when idling, no good signs.

I will refer to two excellent write ups on how to do this procedure and just add my own variations on the story plus a bunch of helpful photos and things:

BEGINNER'S 22re Timing Chain Failure / replacement / head gasket replacement - YotaTech Forums

And of course:

http://www.toyotaminis.com/forum/engine-drivetrain-39/quickie-head-gasket-ver-1-0-a-1907/


The above excellent write-ups plus other forums and the haynes manual made the job relatively easy, but it still took a while due to having to do it after work for an hour or two each day. Luckily I have a 2 car garage so no worries in that regard (makes life so much easier

For reasons that will become obvious I replaced the head with an LCE street performance head with a mild street cam shaft installed, I also replaced the water pump, fan clutch and timing chain, guides, tensioner and sprockets (using an OEM aisin produced set with plastic guides, napa's altrom parts are mostly OEM, aisin et al at great prices).

All the timing stuff was still in fine condition and seemed to be the original set (toyota branded), the driver side guide's top bolt eye had broken off but that was it. The guide itself was still in one piece and not worn much. At first I just replaced that guide, without removing the timing cover, but later I decided to replace it all. The water pump seemed original as well, toyotra branded, same for the fan clutch. But all produced by aisin. Thought it is to be expected, I have to say I am still impressed this all kept working after 280000 miles. And I am unconvinced about the benefits or necessity of metal backed guides. Especially considering you can easily replace the driver side one with just removing the valve cover (normally if there is a metal backed guide it is only the driver's side). And the failure mode of a failed chain guide is quite audible.

As far as I know the problem I had was limited to two tiny coolant leaks in cilinder one and three. No mixing of oil and coolant and never any burning of oil. As far as I can see this was the original head and gasket, I drove it, with the tiny leak(s) for about 130000 miles up to about 280000 miles total. Not bad.

I'll start right out with the head and what kind of interesting bits I found. There is an overview and a couple of close ups. You can see on the first and third cilinder a "hole" which had grown right under the gasket fire ring (corrosion I presume). There is also some additional corrosion at places and the most interesting part is these dents in the thrid cilinder. As if a spark plug's tip or ceramic material broke off. Later you'll see the piston has matching dents, the bore even has a small scratch. Though I have noticed no problems in that regard. I have no idea when these dents appeared, could have been there forever.

On the third cylinder, in the 5th photo it looks like the "hole" caused a small coolant leak into the cilinder, the gasket's fire ring has a corresponding cut or separation. The leak in the first cilinder appears to not have originated at the place where a similar "hole" is present.

More posts will follow later.

 

Some more photos, two are a close up of the third cilinder where you can see the scratch in the cilinder wall. So far this hasn't given me any problems, but it's not ideal ;-)

 

Here you can see the old rocker arm assembly and valves. The rocker arms were still in good shape, but obviously since I got a new head, valves and cam (LCE street head plus mild street cam) I chose to buy a new set of rocker arms. I got them from NAPA, altrom part # 0566022A NAPA AUTO PARTS

At +/- $8 a piece quite a bit cheaper than other brands and sites, which can ask $30 and above a piece. These as far as I know are what toyota used originally, many altrom parts are direct OEM replacements. They look pretty much exactly like the old ones, I placed them next to eachother and could not find a real difference in shape or otherwise. I broke them in according to the instructions and so far the cam has not worn prematurely after a 1000+ miles test ride, I mean camping trip.

Further more you can see the new head without valve cover and with the new rocker arms and fully assembled. I did take my time to use a wire brush (mounted on a drill) on the valve cover and timing chain cover to make them look a bit more shiny. I also installed a new water pump and fan clutch. Last but not least I replaced the timing chain, sprockets and guides.

The timing chain set is NAPA part # ATM 05393300 (NAPA AUTO PARTS) brand is OSK which is the toyota OEM one. I personally don't really believe in using a metal guide for the driver side. It's les noisy, the failure mode is rather obvious and it takes a while to fail. Mine I believe was factory original (toyota branded) with 280k+ miles on it and the only issue was the upper bolt eye of the driver side guide had broken. I rather have pieces of broken plastic in my engine than broken metal once the metal guide's friction material wears off and the chain starts eating the metal... But I can see why one'd prefer a metal guide, especially in performance and/or off-road applications.

For the water pump I used NAPA part # TFW 42339 (NAPA AUTO PARTS) which is a good quality one, just because they had that one in stock. In hindsight however I maybe should have used part # ATM 1529216 (NAPA AUTO PARTS) which is NPW, I am pretty sure that is the OEM one. Both appear to be priced about the same (+/- $35). Looking at the build quality of the one I got I am confident it's going to last, it's an easy fix when it breaks and luckily the failure mode of water pumps is quite obvious and not destructive to the engine (unless you don't notice it and ignore the warning signs).

The original one by the way, branded toyota, was still in working order and I kept it, so was the fan clutch. The fan clutch I got is NAPA part # TM 1552401 (NAPA AUTO PARTS), brand is NPW. Since it's a brand new clutch I notice the fan turning more than before, alas.

Note that I used the original exhaust manifold until recently when I replaced it with an LCE header. More on that later.

 

Wow. Very thorough and thought out. I like your logical thinking and common sense approach to your issue. Myself and you think alot alike. Thanks for the good read.