My old truck. 1987 Toyota 4x4

Hood off And open headers is the only proper way to do this thing.

It's a time honered tradition dating back to the first gow jobs.

You wouldn't want to piss off the guys in the afterlife that made all this possible, would you? Wally parks, micky thompson, and smokey yunic are already pissed that your using a classic impala to transport parts for a Japanese car. Flying in the face of their lifes work by installing the hood and exhaust may just make them become the undead and kick your ass until you stuff a blown ardun flathead in it.

Hoodless and headerless is a given. But you've GOT to do it at 1:30 am and come to bed afterwards stinking of exhaust. Wives love that.

Forgive me lords for I have sinned. I hooked up the exhaust before the first run and now I hear a knock.

I promised my kid the first trip around the block. My neighbors would have understood, but I went and attached the header anyways and now I'm paying the price...

Rings? Sleeve? Rod? Bearing(s)?

berkeley it all. For tonight it's the hard stuff, tomorrow we'll focus on the serious stuff.

Drat and double drat.

on the bright side, my garage smells berkeleying awesome! Mrs. Hungary cant keep her hand off me

my first daily was an 86 toyota 2wd. 22r 4 speed that i tryed very hard to kill in highschool but other then a headgasket i never managed to hurt it. It was well over 340k when it was sold. this one appears to be alot less rusty then all of them ive found!

12:02 5/18/2015

Parade lap: Check

If my neighbors slept through their alarms, they're awake now! (so is one startled mailman)

May the gods forgive me for my previous misstep. I may still craigslist "Flathead" just to see what comes up

Details to follow, of course. I was just too stoked to wait!

Huzzah!

So the knock went away? Or it's just too loud to hear it?

There can be no engine noise with open headers. That's why race cars fail so spectacularly. The awsomeness overwhelms the metallurgy in a catastrophic fashion.

Good to hear that you got the parade lap in.

And yes, thou shalt craigslist flathead. It's the 12th commandment.

In reply to Hungary Bill:

Sorry for getting all philisophical in your build thread man. I will attempt to quit trolling now.

I call that one "The Grassroots"

Day 14, 15, and 16 (Today)

So we start the weekend with day 14 (Saturday). The kid went down for a nap and I fell asleep too. Except I woke up after an hour, and the kid usually sleeps for three so I high-tail it out to the garage. My mission? Tires, fluids, and choke wiring.

The tires took me an hour. The front two rims were still wagon wheels that had been painted. I didn't like them so I thought I'd trade them for that "Toyota" set that came with the truck when I got it back. Not only does the air compressor I have move at glacial speed, but the passenger front tire has dirt in the bead and wont hold air. So a slap a wagon wheel back on in its place. I figure I'll run by a used tire shop or the auto hobby shop later and clean that out.

On to the choke wiring: I hook the wire up and touch it to the battery. I understand this choke is supposed to operate by slowly heating an element to open the choke. I let it sit for a while and nothing ever happens.

I'm not sure if you remember (its a few posts back) but I mentioned I could spin the tab that is the electrical connector 360deg. This tells me it's probably not going to do anything but I spin it anyways. Internal arcing ensues. I figure sparks inside the gas-filled carburetor are a bad thing so I remove the wire. Shucks.

I wrap it up here, and go back inside before the kid wakes up. You would think I'd learn by now that bad days in the garage are proportionate to how deep you delve into the engine, but I'm pretty thick. Later on we have company over and they ask about the Toyota. "It runs!" I tell them, and to prove it I start it (with the exhaust installed).

Thats when I hear the noise. It sounds like a clack, but not a very strong one. Definitely RPM related, definitely #4 cylinder, but is it a clack? Is it just a loud rocker?

I shut it down and leave it for the day, and make the post about the knock after drowning the issue in a PBR.

Day 15:

I start the truck for the wife. The clack is still there, but she doesn't hear it. I'm starting to second guess myself now as the "clack" is more like a loud TAP. Still #4, still RPM related (of course). But it's definitely softer.

what to do?

well, I guess first things first a compression check on #4

120psi.

A leakdown check shows more case venting than the good cylinders.

That does it for me:

The head inspection shows that the valves on cylinders #1 and #2 are a little too tight, but #3 and #4 are ok. I adjust accordingly.

Cam is within time...

The engine was hard to turn when #1 and #4 were reaching TDC so I was wondering if the new piston was hitting the head? Now when I turn it, it's like butter.

Nothing on the spark plugs...

Hmmmmmmmmm

The piston shows no signs of contact with anything. Nothing shows any signs of contact with the piston...

The cylinder wall looks good, but there is a TINY portion of a ridge that the ridge remover left behind. Not sure how I missed it, but it covers less than 1/4 of the cylinder wall, transitions smooth (no sharp edges) and is pretty mild. I get a ridge remover and hone from Oreilley's again and drop the pan and pull the piston.

Courtesy ream of the cylinder follows.

Ring gap's good, bearing clearance is good, can't get any movement between rod and wrist pin... I'm kind of at a loss here.

So!

Day 16

Lots of cleaning and re-installation follows. Not much to tell (it's a road pretty well traveled by now). But total time of tear down to turn key? 6-hours

I thought I heard the rattle, but I think it was just the exhaust flanges bouncing around.

Again, I'm well into the time I should be in the shower, but around the block I go! Hood-less and open header! She seems a bit weak at first, but seems to pull strong by the time I get back.

Proof of travels?

(sorry for the blurry shot. Greasy fingerprint on the cell phone camera)

and just for good measure:

Tomorrow I'll hook up the exhaust and remove that choke. It's warm enough here to run without it for a while I guess. I'll probably put that on order while I buy a few other doo-dads to get this thing 100% legal.

But pending tomorrow's start"

Dusterbd13 wrote: In reply to Hungary Bill: Sorry for getting all philisophical in your build thread man. I will attempt to quit trolling now.

No! It's too late, I already Craigslisted "Flat Head engines"!!!!

Only slightly lesser known than the twelfth is the eleventh commandment: "Be kind, rewind"

I genuinely laughed at that. Thanks for your understanding.

You know, in hindsight it was probably just a rocker... I think the fact that this is really the first time doing this much work, and in the conditions I'm working in, just had me a bit nervous and I chickened out.

It sounded a lot like this video's noise (maybe not quite as bad, but hard to tell): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8dVGxDXCnk

Ah well, so tomorrow the exhaust gets hooked back up, the hood goes back on, and I head to the licensing office!

So wait, the knock is gone? AWESOME!

How did the clutch feel by the way? Brakes ok too?

Day 17 (yesterday)

She's back and she starts every time. I have her idling in the garage while I try to figure out what her first run is going to be. Junk yard for parts? Drive her to work? Then I realize there's a nasty puddle under her. She's vomiting oil like it's going out of style.

About then the wife calls, her car is smoking, and she's at school. It smells like coolant.

First things first, the Toyota oil vomit: The leak looked like it was belching out the back of the head. I felt around back there and noticed the half-moon must have got bumped during the install of the valve cover. 10-minutes and all was good

Back on task, the wife's coolant problem:

The truck's first drive is going to be a rescue mission!

The truck feels a bit sluggish, but that could be because I'm hauling 5-extra wheels with me. Plus I only shot the timing by my previous marks so there's the possibility it's that.

I get to the school parking lot early so I occupy my time tinkering with the interior bits. Mrs. Hungary is eventually out of class and we do some poking around under her hood (git yur mind out the gutter). It's too hard to tell where the leak is coming from, but it's only 3-miles back home so we add about 1/2 pint of coolant (that's all it took) and sent her on her way.

Along the way the clack sounds like it came back. The truck also doesn't feel like it has as much power as it should. But most of all, that berkeleying clack is back.

We get home and easily scope the cause of Mrs. Hungary's car problems:

Easy peasy. We decide the car is too hot to work on at the moment (the picture was taken much later) and figure we can run to the title office and to a muffler shop in the Impala and get the truck titled, and a new muffler installed on the Imp (the impala split her muffler on Monday).

We do, and that's done. Wife's car is fixed, Impala is quiet, and the truck is titled (yay!)

I figure now is a good time to go out to the garage to time the truck and do the hot-adjust on the valves. So I do. I go for a celebratory trip around the block and not only is the clack back, and it's still down on power, but now it's driving like it cant clear her throat.

Know what I mean? Kind of sputtery but accerating slow? You keep in the throttle expecting it to clear but it never does?

I give. back in the garage she goes.

Speaking of which, here's a picture of that cool old timing gun:

End day 17

Day 18:

So on the bright side, I didn't chicken out because of lifter chatter, this clack is something I think I should be concerned about. But where in the hell is it?

Last time I focused on the bottom end and didn't find anything. This time I'm looking at the valves. What if one was sticking when the truck was warm? What if say.... the exhaust on #4 was sticking open and that was causing the clack? That would explain a couple things:

• the poor way the truck is running
• the low power
• clacking could be the valve slapping closed? Or the piston tapping it in the direction it's supposed to go.
• I drug a gear once and got a good burble pop pop pop from the exhaust, if the exhaust was open this might explain that...

And look very carefully at the next picture (right side).

See those marks? could that be "love taps" from the exhaust valve (exhaust is on that side)

So I figure before I go ripping the engine apart (again) I should see if I can see this sticking valve. I use a punch and a hammer to open the valve, but it moves flawlessly (but only a little, it didn't move that much).

Then I idle the engine with the valve cover off. OOPS! I figured oil would escape, but nowhere NEAR the quantity that did. Either way, no sticking valve but no clack either.

So that's where I'm at. I know if I run this long enough that clack will come back (it always does). The head is in the trunk of my car and I'm going to pull valves starting with #4 (because that's where the noise is)and see what I can see.

Day 18 part II

I wiped my finger on the #4 piston while I was in there. I noticed that I could move the piston left to right about 1mm (maybe) with moderate pressure. "This can't be normal" says I and I figure I MUST have botched the measurement when I ordered a new piston. I MUST have ordered a STD sized piston but needed a .020 over.

So I go to my trophy shelf and measure the old piston. STD size exactly.

damn

Ring gap:

Factory specs call for 0.0098-0.0185" for #1 and 0.0236-0.0323" for No. 2 compression rings. These rings come just under the high side of being within spec. .031" on #2 and .0184 on #1.

I have a lot of head scratching to do. This is my first piston engine re-fresh (if you want to call it that) and right now I'm REALLY missing that 13b I rebuilt. What an easy engine that was!

I'll end it with "why the side to side motion on that piston?"

• The other pistons don't move, could it just be because this one is new? I tried to take a video with my phone, but my computer wont let me save it and upload to youtube.

It's my son's B-day this weekend, so I'll be putting this on hold until Monday. If anyone has any ideas before then I could use some direction.

Thanks!

TargaToy wrote: How did the clutch feel by the way? Brakes ok too?

Clutch is perfect, got a nasty squeal coming from one of the rear brakes I'll have to look at. Could just be dirt. But they stop the truck

Wow, you just can't catch a break on this thing! How many times have you had it together and then back apart now?

Did you check the timing (with a light) while it was running last? Have you tried a stethoscope (or piece of hose stuck in your ear) to try to pinpoint the noise?

I hope you figure it out!

I'm tellin ya! This would be "lucky #3" by my count. I did use a timing light, but did not use a stethoscope (don't own one).

I'm relatively positive it's related to #4, and very certain it's coming from the exhaust side. I'm hoping I find something this time. When I was in the bottom end last time I really didn't find much other than that little remnant of the cylinder ridge.

Really though, if it keeps up much longer I may have to throw the credit card at the damn thing. Kind of ironic that I can't seem to revive a truck that I couldn't once kill...

wellllll, nothing really promising found in the head. If there WAS a tight valve it was #4 intake. I pulled the spring on #1-4 exhaust side, and #3, 4 intake side and found nothing really abnormal except if I dropped #4 intake to where the keeper ring met the valve stem guide seal it got pretty tight (like it took effort to remove, where all the others just slid out).

I removed the valve all the way and installed a spare intake I brought but it was still rather tight where the keeper ring was. I wobbled the spare valve around a bit (don't know what I was hoping for there) and pulled it back out.

I did another test with the original valve and things seem a lot smoother. Maybe there was a bit of FOD in there? I dunno, either way it is smoother now.

This lack of finding something solid has me worried about the bottom end again.

Gluh... back and forth, back and forth.

I finally got the piston video I made to load. The more I think about it, the more I think this is the tail I've been chasing.

https://youtu.be/gzHA7dm0wGw

Yeah, that ain't right. Does the replacement piston have the same style skirt? Same length and everything? Where are you measuring piston diameter? Just at the crown, or are you measuring further down too?

Looks like you found your clack!

Do you have a harbor freight near? Go get a set of THESE

and a digital caliper (3-4" micrometer would be better, but much more $$$)

The snap gauge lets you measure the exact diameter of the bore in as many places as you like. This will tell you the taper and ovality of the bore. Also measure the piston at the top and at the skirt.

I bet you've got the wrong piston somehow. I doubt the ridge reamer could have screwed up the bore by that much.

yeah piston not supposed to do that.

For future reference, that clacking noise is what severe piston slap sounds like