bag of rocks sound below 2500rpm gone above

[sh0rtlife]

so the bag of rocks sound was gone or atleast very very faint for a long time...the car has always since neer new suffered said sound, toyota at one time while under warrenty said it was the e-brake cable rattling around...and yes the first thing i checked and check often is the exhaust

the sounds gotten ALOT worse over the past week, and can be heard in the car now at pretty much all times below 2500 rpm..above nd al the way to redline the sounds gone...now i wouldnt be terribly worried about it except theres now fine paste shavings in the oil....my guts telling me timeing/vvt...as the sounds comeing from that end...and neer the top..so all things point at the vvt may be failing

the car has been EATING crank position sensors..on swaping the last 2 out they were COVERED in shavings


so im looking for any and all input..car just rolled 190,000 KILOMETERS yes a lil under 120,000 miles..an 07 5dr

[ex-x-fire]

I'd pull the valve cover and look for a bunch of slack. Do you know if it's ever been run low on oil. If it has that can lead to very worn tensioner guides.

[sh0rtlife]

considering since new its ALWAYS used oil between changes id count on it having been run low atleast a few times

[remcafee]

not good if you see metal shavings, pull off the valve cover and check things out

[sh0rtlife]

Originally Posted by remcafee

not good if you see metal shavings, pull off the valve cover and check things out

thats the plan, im shuffling cars n bikes out of the way to get it into the shop tommaro, allready ordered VVT, timing set, and gaskets so im ready

as much as i HATE you tube ive dug thru it for engine clips of bad vvt's and it sure sounds like its a bad vvt...i just hope its not "beyond" the vvt and timing

as care for as my wife put into the car before we got married, its "short trip" useage on an island made for a FILTHY engine in the first 50k miles.....ive seen 200000 mile engines that arnt half as filthy and were beat on

[ex-x-fire]

You might be better off swapping out the engine.

[remcafee]

Originally Posted by sh0rtlife

thats the plan, im shuffling cars n bikes out of the way to get it into the shop tommaro, allready ordered VVT, timing set, and gaskets so im ready

as much as i HATE you tube ive dug thru it for engine clips of bad vvt's and it sure sounds like its a bad vvt...i just hope its not "beyond" the vvt and timing

as care for as my wife put into the car before we got married, its "short trip" useage on an island made for a FILTHY engine in the first 50k miles.....ive seen 200000 mile engines that arnt half as filthy and were beat on

how many miles does that engine have?

[sh0rtlife]

Originally Posted by remcafee

how many miles does that engine have?

110k ish?..190,000 kilometers

[sh0rtlife]

i spent some time chasing down a timings set, seals, and a VVT..then spent time shuffling cars and bikes out of t he way to get the yaris in the shop.....

and boy oh boy am i glad i did..its cold as hell and trying to snow again.

however NO ONE would have guessed what the issue was...in fact as i cracked the engine open, OBVIOUSLY being the very first person to be inside of it since it was built on the assembly line..everything came apart clean and as expected

got the valve cover off and yeah is not exactly clean in there but whats eye catching is that the VVT is a obvious "hot spot" where oil has litteraly cooked to it

so its the VVT right.....WRONG

some time later im fighting with getting the timing cover off and im playing with the flywheel only to hear clattering...hmmmm why..grab the top center of the chain and i can replicate it

once the timing cover was off it still wasnt "obvious"..at first, untill i see a bolt laying just behind where the crank position sensor would be if the cover was on(this is likely why my crank pots have been blowing like crazy).....now this bolt is clean, shiny and HEAVILY worn..a groove cut into it

i inspect further and play with the chain and the entire "front" timing guide is loose..no not loose NOT ATTACHED...that clean bolt..i also found a nice clean washer...BOTH BOLTS ARE MISSING from the chain guide....1 worn and hogged out..the other i assume ill find in the pan..its got ZERO signs of ever having threadlock on it

after pulling the guide out and inspecting it.theres chunks of the guide plastic missing..and..the bottom edge has clearly been being ground off by the chain..this is where my shavings have been coming from..thankfully this has been only in the last 1000 miles or so...so im not expecting to have caused any real damage..and yes im going to diesel flush the oil passages before re-assembly then ill put cheep oil in and do another running flush, ill likely run cheepish oil and do 3000 mile oil changes for a while to hopefully clear things out

pics will come tommaro

[Cletus Garfunkle]

Damn man haha good catch I have never heard of the timing chain guide bolts falling out.
Im guessing its the one without the timing chain tensioner cause of the two bolts. I cant say I've ever seen thread locker on those bolts/put any on myself they just get torqued and left alone.
My only experience it taking apart 4 different 1nz-fe motors all range from 2001-2005 so I cant say anything about an 07 tho.
But good info for my next engine build ill make sure to put some in hahaha.

[sh0rtlife]

so heres pics

had to shuffle out 5 cars, and 12 motorcycles to get the yaris in....



filthy right?..this car was maintained at the dealer for the first 5 years..with alot of complaints about rattling noise....which was at one point told its the E-brake cable rattling.....this filth is actualy not from poor maintinance but the fact of living on a small island doing alot of short hop commutes..is the first 70k miles were all done via local comute with the car NEVER stretching its legs..whats especialy noteworthy is the "heat" build up around the VVT unit




take a good look..i did NOT unbolt that guide....look at the "flange" its made on the block from bouncing around since NEW..no that is NOT gasket/silicone thats flanged and smashed out aluminum that had to be filed off


the bottom of the same guide..again...i have no idea where the bolt is....mpte the mounting post is polished and worn...110k miles of rattling....i suspect that the when i started eating crank pots that the last bolt fell out


rake a look at the worn spots in the front cover..this is NOT chain slap..but guide slap



this is the guide itself pulled out...take a good look at how polished and worn and hogged it is around the bolt holes..in fact they are "oversized" and out of round






this bolt was found with its washer neerby....under the crank pot...no it is not "wet" in fact its dry and clean..that shine is it simply being worn smooth its chrome polished at this point

[sh0rtlife]

more pics
note that adjuster..specificly note the staining..this tells the story of how loose things have been and how long...each mark represents various lengths of time and looseness of the chain guide, but more specificaly how long it took for the bolts to fall out...and yes its at maximum travel


another look at the smash work the guide did to the head and block..thats not sealant..if you look real close at the bolt holes youll note about 5mm+ of thread is gone..no its not stripped but WORN out..smooth in fact





a quick look at the tensioner side guide..all said it looks good untill you make note that chain slap has removed some chunks





this one pisses me off....thats the crank wheel that triggers the crank pot..obviously the bolts did some damage..note the flat smashed spots...its still within spec thankfully....but just





new chain vs old chain..."by toyota spec if the marks are still on the chain re-use it"......yeah hell no...its a full link stretched, but more importantly look at the deflection stretch..this is an archacic test i use for drit bike chains to see how safe they are..once they can bend 90 degs they are unsafe....both chains are held horizontal letting the far end "bend" over under their own weight




cleaned front cover with a better look at the damages





a last good shot of the upper guide bolt hole...note its not even the right size any more....

[NYC-SE]

That's incredible. Sounds like those bolts were never installed properly at assembly. Shocking for a Japanese car. And yet still it made it 120K like that. Toyota quality. Maybe?

Good luck putting it back together. Let us know how it works out.

[Neinris]

You might want to go ahead and remove the oil pan and check for more debris there, also look in the oil pickup tube.

[sh0rtlife]

Originally Posted by Neinris

You might want to go ahead and remove the oil pan and check for more debris there, also look in the oil pickup tube.

because i didnt want to have an engine brace in my way i have a stand under the engine supporting it on the lift...or the pan would allready be off

i still have to find the other timing guide bolt and washer.......no clue where they are

should also mention if flushed the engine out with a gallon of parts washer to get the shavings and gunk out as much as possible

timing covers on so ill get things bolted up and the pan off and see what kind of nasty comes out...cracked open the old VVT and it basicly dumped fine glitter

[Compeer]

Originally Posted by sh0rtlife

because i didnt want to have an engine brace in my way i have a stand under the engine supporting it on the lift...or the pan would allready be off

i still have to find the other timing guide bolt and washer.......no clue where they are

should also mention if flushed the engine out with a gallon of parts washer to get the shavings and gunk out as much as possible

timing covers on so ill get things bolted up and the pan off and see what kind of nasty comes out...cracked open the old VVT and it basicly dumped fine glitter

get yourself a thread repair kit and you can drill and put thread repair inserts in, Glad its not the bottom end bro thats the main thing all of this stuff is easy compared to having to find a new motor.

I can't believe Toyota never put a stethoscope on the engine to listen for where the rattle was, below 2.5k rpm rattle is a dead giveaway to chain tensioner problems. My mechanic friend who taught me to swing a wrecnh shown me how to use a large screw driver as a stethoscope by placing the handle end agaisnt your ear and the other end agaisnt where ever you think the rattle is and listen while it runs, you can narrow it down a lot before you start. Worth remembing if you have a rattle in the future.

[remcafee]

ill stop you right there, that is not a toyota bolt, something dpesnt make sense, has anyone worked on the motor internally before? that bolt is definitely not factory, theres more to the story here i bet, someone had to of been inside of that engine before

[remcafee]

whats your vin number?