At the end of last year, my mom gave me her 2007 Camry with the 2AZ-FE 2-stroke engine, which currently burns a quart of 5w-20 every 1,000 miles or so. So far, I've put about 5,000 miles on it since then, it runs well other than the oil burning problem which I know is due to defective pistons/rings and that these things can run for hundreds of thousands of miles as long as you keep adding oil. If I'm feeling particularly adventurous, I might attempt to tackle that this summer, as I've read it can be done without pulling the engine with creative use of a floor jack, but right now I have a more pressing problem with it, that's stopped me from driving the car for a few days now.
It started with the engine sounding a little funny, but I couldn't quite pinpoint it. It has progressed quickly to a terrible racket at startup that doesn't quite go away, even at warm idle. The engine still runs and I'd like to keep it that way, so the car hasn't moved since last week. And it's coming from the timing chain area and is clearly internal to the engine, so that's unfortunate.
I went ahead and pulled the valve cover this morning and found "excessive play" in the timing chain.
I don't think it should be doing that, plus I'm able to move the chain side to side without any resistance by putting a screwdriver down the timing cover. From what I can see, the guides look to be intact with their plastic pieces still attached, so I'm hoping it's just the tensioner that's failed. I have one on order that's supposed to arrive today, so I'll see if that fixes it soon enough. If that doesn't work, well, I did the timing chains on my XTerra last year and it looks to be a bit easier on this engine with everything accessible through the wheel well.
And since I had to pull the valve cover anyways, I figured I might as well snap a few pics. The gasket, particularly around the spark plug tubes, was hard as a rock but I've also got one of those coming. The engine has 131,000 miles on it, owned by my mom since 2007, with dealership oil changes whenever the maintenance light comes on.
It started with the engine sounding a little funny, but I couldn't quite pinpoint it. It has progressed quickly to a terrible racket at startup that doesn't quite go away, even at warm idle. The engine still runs and I'd like to keep it that way, so the car hasn't moved since last week. And it's coming from the timing chain area and is clearly internal to the engine, so that's unfortunate.
I went ahead and pulled the valve cover this morning and found "excessive play" in the timing chain.
I don't think it should be doing that, plus I'm able to move the chain side to side without any resistance by putting a screwdriver down the timing cover. From what I can see, the guides look to be intact with their plastic pieces still attached, so I'm hoping it's just the tensioner that's failed. I have one on order that's supposed to arrive today, so I'll see if that fixes it soon enough. If that doesn't work, well, I did the timing chains on my XTerra last year and it looks to be a bit easier on this engine with everything accessible through the wheel well.
And since I had to pull the valve cover anyways, I figured I might as well snap a few pics. The gasket, particularly around the spark plug tubes, was hard as a rock but I've also got one of those coming. The engine has 131,000 miles on it, owned by my mom since 2007, with dealership oil changes whenever the maintenance light comes on.