Hi fellas.Long time readers might remember the Toyota / slant six project of mine from last summer. As for an update, things went pretty okay over the winter, acceptable mileage, moderate reliability, many thumbs-up from toothless hillbillies. All was well till a couple months ago when the trans grenaded itself in spectacular fashion. Self-inflicted damage as I neglected the crap out of it. Bad u-joints (really really bad) vibrated the thing to death, causing it to leak, and after a few jaunts with no gear oil it started grinding pretty bad. I decided that it was more cost-effective to just let it run dry, keep driving it till it gave out, which it did in spectacular fashion. It sounded like an aircraft landing on a cymbal factory, and then it finally locked up the rear wheels and came screetching to a halt.

So, I got me a new transmission and since the engine had to come out anyway I decided to freshen up whatever the budget could afford. Gaskets, exhaust upgrades, cleaning and painting, new clutch and hydraulic slave, etc. She's looking good - I came upon some ¢75 cans of Krylon at a junk store, some in official Plymouth Blue and some others in red. So I'm going for a Captain America theme on the engine paint.

Now my question: I pulled the timing chain cover to redo the gasket. I want to know how much chain stretch is too much. I have a factory manual, and the method illustrated there involves a torque wrench (which I don't have). If I rotate the engine, the top of the chain is taut, and the bottom is loose and will move maybe .25 to .5". Gears are fine, links are fine. Leave well enough alone?

Next question: when I removed the timing chain cover, coolant poured out of the topmost bolt hole. I'm going to assume that this is normal. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Overall, I put maybe 12,000 on the truck over the winter. The speedo conked out early on, so that's a guess. It was a particularly brutal winter, but nothing really failed. Well...lots of things failed (radiator, tires, brakes, trans mount, ujoints, heater blower, transmission) but she kept on hauling.

Kip-on-Truckin'

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1965 Valiant wagon Turbo slant (work in progress)
2000 Chevy 155" cargo van - The Abductor
1970 Newport convertible
1996 Buick Roadmaster Wagon
1966 CruiseAire motor home
1990 Toyota 1 ton box truck TURBO slant (scraped)

Hi kipamore, please keep us updated as earlier, you are a true hot-rodder in your approach to tech problem solving.
Not bad for an engine launched more than 50 years ago...

Olaf.

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Aspenized

Yes, that hole goes into the water jacket. Use some sealer on the same (short) bolt when you re-install it. (a longer bolt can hit the #1 cylinder "barrel" and not fully seat)
DD

Thanks Doc, I would have overlooked that bolt seal for sure.

While I have your ear a thought occurs to me: I don't want to spend the bread on a new cam, nor do I want to pull the head, oil pump, distributor, fuel pump to swap the lifters. But since a new timing set is only $36, doing that would give me a chance to advance or retard the stock cam for free if I felt like it. Is there any reason to pursue this? I only care about torque/mpg at 2100 rpm, don't care about acceleration or high rpm power, and I'm always willing to trade driveability for mileage. Thanks,
Kip-on-Truckin'

_________________
1965 Valiant wagon Turbo slant (work in progress)
2000 Chevy 155" cargo van - The Abductor
1970 Newport convertible
1996 Buick Roadmaster Wagon
1966 CruiseAire motor home
1990 Toyota 1 ton box truck TURBO slant (scraped)