Toyota 22RE; ticking under the rocker cover related to oil?

[Horatio]

Hey all. My brother's truck ('85 Toyota pickup) has a constant ticking under the rocker/valve cover. He's adjusted the vavles a couple of times now and it's not going away. It also doesn't disappear when the engine is warmed up. I've read that valvetrain sounds can be linked to oil (he's using 5W30 Quaker State) is it possible that this is what's happening in his case?

Any comments welcome. Thanks,

Greg

 

[TR3-2001SE]

If it doesn't appear in a warmed up engine it is probably oil related. I have had some luck using marvel mystery oil on valve noise and it is not expensive. Also it may be your oil filter that does not allow the oil to get to the valves quickly. Try changing brands and see what happens. Purolator,Wix, or OEM are all good choices. I am not a fan of quaker state but I would think a change of oil manufacture would be in order also. Unless you are in a really cold climate 10w-30 would be an improvement. Chevron,Penzoil or Castrol GTX are three good dino oils.

 

[JohnBrowning]

First is he doing the valve adjustment with the engine at operateing temps? Is he doing exhaust side first? You can alternate exhaust?intake once you get good and do it realy fast. Has he done them before? Feeler guages are not easy to use with consistency unless you do it alot. I am going to guess that it is noisiest at the rear closet to the fire wall.Is he working quickly?.
At any rate it is better to be too loose then to tight.

If it does not go away at all then it could be that the clearance between the rockers and the common rail/shaft is out of spec.

I would try a 15W40,15W50 or 20W50 oil first if you are sure you have done everyting right.

P.S. THe trick to doing this quickly is to un bolt everything bolted to or snaped to the valve cover. Then take the nuts and ruber gromets off of the valve cover. Brak the seal on the valve cover. Put the gromets back in place and finger thighten the nuts on. Warm up the vechilele. Have you 19mm socket and rachet waiting, your box end wrench, feeler guage set, and screw driver handy. Shut it off and get the valve cover off asap. Do wich ever exhaust valve requires the least movment to get it into postion. Then move on from their! Try to get the last exhaust valve at the back early on as it is the hardest to reach and most time consumeing. If you wait till the end it will have cooled to much.

 

[Chris142]

My old 20R would tick if I got the valve cover hold down bolts too tight. Guess they would pull on the rocker shaft enough to open the clearances a little.

The 85' will have a single roller timing chain. It's pretty common for these to slap around when first started and they break the runners, then the timing chain makes a weird rattle.

The spec on my 20R was .008-.010 hot, ran better at .012-.014 but was noisier.

 

[Horatio]

Great info, guys, much appreciated. We're both pretty new to working on cars so any advice about adjusting valves is good. He was afraid that he wasn't getting the locknuts tight enough when he'd finished and they were creeping out of adjustment (to me, cranking down on the adjusters sounds like a dangerous idea). Didn't realize that they could cool quickly enough to throw off the adjustments so I'll forward this thread to him.

As for the timing chain; he just replace that a couple of months ago but sure enough the guides had busted. he didn't have the money at the time to get upgraded parts but he may do that in the future.

Thanks again

Greg

(also I'll let him know that a change of oil brand and filter might not be a bad idea)

 

[tom slick]

on a 22r the adjustment usually doesn't change much between cold and hot. alot of people adjust them to .007" (i) and .011" (e) with no burnt valve issue. these engines make noise, it means they are happy. as long as you know the valves are adjusted then it is fine. if it is fuel injected the fuel injectors make a ticking sound that can be mistaken for a valve tick, but nothing is wrong.

 

[Amkeer]

I would go with the heavier oil, 10w40 or 5w40. Those vehicles originally speced 20w50.

Daily Drives:
-2003 Toyota Tacoma PreRunner XtraCab, 2.7 Liter , Mobil1 Synthetic SS 5W-30.
ODO 7200 Miles.
-1995 Toyota 4-Runner 3.0 V6, Mobil1 Synthetic SS 10W-30.
ODO 83300 Miles.
http://community.webshots.com/user/amkeer

 

[Horatio]

Just as a follow up;

since the engine is burning a bit of oil (new problem that we're working on

) he's been adding oil all along; he calls it a real-time oil change....

Anyway, he's switched to a 10W30 of unknown brand and it seems the ticking has gone away.

Thanks again for the help!

Greg