toyota valve cover leak

GONOVRIT

GONOVRIT

blue collar brotherhood
Joined
Apr 10, 2005
Location
Dallas NC
This has pissed me off beyond belief. 22RTE, fresh engine, new valve cover gasket, new half moon gaskets. Didn't have this problem until the engine was rebuilt. Its leaking to the sides of the half moon gasket I know. I can see this happening at idle, take it for a drive and boost the engine and it looks like someone sprayed a qt of oil on the front of the engine. I've taken it off 3x and tried everything I know. The dye in the oil is rather insulting at this point. Any guesses?
 
Dab of rtv at the point where the half moon gaskets meet the head/vc gasket is what we were taught when i went to T-TEN school.
 
I've always ran a bead of rtv on the half moon part and the top side at the edges. Biggest thing is to hold the half moon seals while tightening the cover down.
 
Need three hands really, four would be better. When tightening the valve cover bolts down the moon seals have a tendency to push out.
 
josh what kind of breather system you got on this engine?
pcv hooked up? too much blow by? really should not do this
if your gettin a good ring seal and your breathers are not
restricted. sounds like too much crankcase pressure.
 
X2 on what was said above. I use RTV all around the half moon seals. Then a fine line of RTV across the top. When you tighten the VC down, do it slowly and in increments making sure the half moon gasket stays seated.
 
DAWGTOY said:
josh what kind of breather system you got on this engine?
pcv hooked up? too much blow by? really should not do this
if your gettin a good ring seal and your breathers are not
restricted. sounds like too much crankcase pressure.
Click to expand...
I agree it shouldn't be building that kind of pressure and its stumping me. May be coming from somewhere else as well but I haven't seen it. PCV is hooked up, breather is an open drain. I had rtv on it the first time yesterday but I'm sure I didn't give it ample time to set up. It SHOULD be good now, gonna take it for a drive up the road now, sorry neighbors ....
 
Well it doesn't leak from the gasket at idle now but the engine is still getting covered by oil after hitting drive pressure, which is making this very difficult to diagnose. I'll be working tomorrow and gone from 6a-8p. Been planning to leave at 6am Friday for Windrock, this sucks:wtf:
 
Is there any way the oil pump or timing chain cover could be leaking and the fan blowing it around?
 
Fresh as in just rebuilt ? Any chance the deck of the block was surfaced ? If it was, did they mount the timing cover to block when they machined the deck ?

If the top surface of engine block was machined, and the timing cover was not, the cover sits proud of the deck, when you install the timing cover then lay the head down and tighten, the head pushes the timing cover down, just enough that the front seal is distorted around the balancer, and you now have a pressurized oil leak. Messy and a pain to fix.
 
Many years ago my dad suddenly wanted to help me put my 22 R back together In my 84 after I changed the timing chain/gears/ destroyed guides/oilpump/etc without pulling the head ( I suspect he wanted my truck out of the driveway after 2 days). I told him to be carefull as this was aluminum, not cast iron. He was tightening the bolt thats under the camshaft sprocket that goes from the head down into the top center of the timing chain cover and I heard a pop. He had overtightened the bolt and cracked the timing cover under the round protrusion where the bolt screws into the cover, just above the waterpump. Maybe That's the source of your leak?
 
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The front main seal on mine wore a groove around the harmonic balancer shaft and would blow oil out and hit the fan and would go everywhere. Looks like a oil bottle exploded.
 
Thanks for all the help guys! We're fortunate to have a club member that is a full time mechanic in Knoxville. I went straight to him Friday morning and hooked the buggy up to a smoke machine. Almost immediately found smoke coming from the front of the valve cover:wtf: I had bought new gaskets the night before so we removed the cover and found some contact marks inside the valve cover. Damn it, It hit me as I had read about this some time ago. I installed ARP head studs when I reassembled the engine and the front two were making contact with a rib inside the valve cover. As good as the seal appeared it was never going to happen. A little grinding and it was good to go! We then cranked up the pressure and found a couple of vacuum leaks. My turd engine slapped a nasty beat down on windrock park over the wknd:flipoff2:
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Nice! What turbo you running?
 
Just the CT20 with a couple extra pounds until after our moab trip. I have a running original turbo truck in the shop that already has the CT26 swap on it. I'll be putting that in the buggy after the trip.
 
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