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I swapped a low mileage (86k) 22re from a 2wd 94' into my 4wd 84' pickup this spring, and It's been knock/ticking since I first got it started. I haven't heard a lot of these engines run in person, so I wasn't sure if it was something I needed to be worried about. The old 22r I swapped out made a similar noise. I thought it was just valve noise, but I've adjusted the valves a few times and its still there. I installed a new timing chain set with a metal guide before I put the engine in and I thought maybe I was hearing the chain slap the metal guide, but the sound isn't coming from the front of the engine. I've ran the engine (briefly) without acorn nuts and the sound didn't go away. I've also pried around the camshaft with a heel bar to see if I could get any movement, but I didn't see or feel any deflection. My stethoscope seems to tell me that the sound is either coming from the top end (the intake side acorn nuts) or the back of the engine, near cylinder #4 (on the block, under the exhaust manifold and on the head near the #4 spark plug). The sound gets more noticeable when the engine warms up and gets faster with increasing RPM. Its hard to tell if it goes away or gets worse at higher RPM because everything else makes so much noise. Its also hard to hear how it changes under load over all the other noises the body of the truck makes when I drive it. It isn't intermittent like what I've seen in videos of trucks with spun bearings.
I changed the oil yesterday and dropped the oil pan to take a look at the rod bearings. They felt nice and tight, I couldn't get them to move up or down. The wrist pins didn't seem to have any play either, as far as I could tell. For each cylinder I turned the crank until I got to an upward stroke then tried to push upwards on the pistons with a socket extension, and none of them budged. I wasn't satisfied that I had eliminated the possibility of bottom end trouble, so I dropped the pan again today and pulled the #4 and #2 rod bearing caps to take a look. They seemed to plastiguage in spec, although #4 wasn't uniform. The #4 cap side bearing looks a little rough and feels rough to the touch, so that seems like a possible source of the problem. Still, I cant shake that it could be a top end issue.
the truck also gets code 26 every once in a while, a rich condition. It seems to come when I'm engine braking on a particular hill (and other times), and it goes away on its own. Getting on the highway seems to turn it off pretty reliably. I don't know if that has anything to do with the knock, but I figured Id throw it in.
Here's what the engine sounded like when I first got it installed and running in June:
Here's what it sounded like last week (don't mind the coconut sound about 10 seconds in, I touched the phone to one of the acorn nuts for a sec because I thought that's where the sound was coming from).
These are the #4 rod bearings. The cap side bearing feels about as bad as it looks. I don't know too much about this stuff, but I feel like an 89k mile bearing shouldn't look like this. Should I replace it, and all the other bottom end bearings? The #2 cap side bearing looks better than the #4 cap side bearing, but the rod side bearings look similar. The crankshaft doesn't look too bad so I think I could polish it with emery cloth and install new bearings with some assembly lube.
When I had a rod knock, it was very pronounced at a specific rpm range, which was not at idle, I think it was somewhere around 2k. If you rev'd past the range, you didn't hear it, and under range you didn't hear it, very I dropped the pan, pulled the rod bearings and one of mine was worn down to the brass (I think it is brass under there, not sure actually). I changed the rod bearings, and nothing else, I didn't even plastigauge because I figured at some point here I'd rebuild the whole engine....that was about 10 years ago and maybe 25k miles ago. I'm at 200k now, at this rate I may never have to rebuild this engine.
Anyway, one of my rod bearings was worn much worse than yours. I think if I was already in there with pan down, then yeah I'd probably do exactly what you said, polish crank as best I could, and put new bearings in.
22Rs are pretty noisy to start with. They're known to make piston noise-as I understand it, it has to do with the design of the piston itself. A lot of people that have this problem just run them, and they can go for a long time that way.
One other thing you might check is the EGR valve(if you have one- I'm in California so we do here). It's on the back of the head about where you're detecting the noise. They can get really noisy when they get stuck. I'm not sure that that's what your engine is doing, but it might be worth looking at.
Here's a pretty helpful link on diagnosing issues: https://22reperformance.com/faq-diagnostic-info
Hope you can get to the bottom of it!
thanks NG, i dont know how I haven't seen that page yet. I'm definitely going to check my TPS, I've never really trusted my timing adjustment 100%. I'm also not totally sure what spark knock sounds like in person, so it's possible I've been getting some spark knock. either way, the rod bearings I pulled looked and felt rough, and the new bearings came in yesterday (King brand from 22re performance). at the very least I'm going to change the ones I pulled, I may not do the others just yet. its hovering above freezing here, I'm worried I may make things worse by messing with the other factory bearings. The pan is easy to drop, I may change the others when it gets warmer.
What valve lash method are you using?
have you isolated the noise with a broom handle or stethoscope?
Is it a tick or a knock they are pretty distinct sounds in my experience.
Advance your timing a few degrees and see if it helps. If not just put it back where it was...
So I ended up only changing the bearings for the 2 rods that I messed with, #4 and #2. I didn't want to do the others, as I trust Toyota's workmanship more than myself, and the bearings didn't plastiguage out of spec. they actually plastiguaged to about the same measurements after I put the new bearings in. I didn't think it was worth it for me to replace all the other bearings "while I was in there" because its so easy to drop the oil pan, and I didn't want to introduce more sources of error. Honestly it probably wasn't worth it to change any of the bearings at all since It doesn't really sound like a deep bottom end knock, but I feel a little better knowing that its not rod knock.
The sound is still there.
I double checked the timing after I let the engine idle long enough to get up to temp (like 20-25 minutes) and it was all good. I also checked that The timing marks on the cam sprocket were straight up when the timing mark on the crank was at 0 BTDC and the cyl #1 rockers were loose, and it all lined up perfectly. Before I set the timing I tried to see how it ran with the spark retarded and advanced as far as the dizzy would go in either direction, and the knock.tap didn't seem to change.
87, The sound is coming from the back of the engine near cyl #4, as checked with a mechanics stethoscope. I cant decide if its louder from the head or the block, but I think it may be louder at the very back side of the cylinder. I (think I) can make out the sounds of the valves and injectors, which are both making plenty of noise. The knock/tap sounds a little bid deeper, but not by much. It's isolated pretty well in the "22re knock from cab" video above, but you may need to turn the volume all the way up to hear it. Its a lot more obvious in person than it is in the video. It kind of rides the line between knock and tap.
Ive tried to adjust the valves hot and cold, to spec and slightly tighter. It has always made the same noise.
I think my next moves are to check for play in the camshaft (again) and try to find someone local who's worked with these trucks to listen to the engine in person. Ideally they would tell me this is just what 22re's sound like, and I shouldn't worry about it lol.
The old 22r that the truck came with made the same sound, so it could just be normal, but then again that engine was not very healthy.
11-08-2022, 11:37 PM
