Toyota 22r reground crankshaft and rear main seal

[Paul Buhler]

Hi: I'm expanding my learning by rebuilding a Toyota 22r carbureted engine. I spun a rod bearing, so while I've got every thing apart I had the crank reground .010 undersize and polished. the shop also undersized the rear main seal surface, which has a shallow groove in it (which I thought was from seal wear; the engine has 111,000 miles on it).

Anyway, my question is: will a new seal seat well enough on this undersized surface? Or should I install a speedi sleeve, or do they make oversized seals. I looked for some Toyota web resources, but couldn't find anything that was clear enough for me to feel comfortable. I'll be calling the machine shop on Monday for their thoughts, but I'd appreciate any of your thoughts on the subject. Thanks in advance, Paul

[digitup2]

I think they would use a over size seal .You could just pack it with rice!(':lol:')

[Paul Buhler]

And here I was thinking this was a serious site.
My Toy and my dozer don't owe me anything and what I like about both of them is that they are reliable and fairly easy and inexpensive to fix when there is a problem. With some further digging, I found a very useful thread that was posted that walks through one person's rebuild - similar vein to many rebuilds here - thorough, good ideas shared and discussed along with various opinions on how best to solve a particular problem.

http://www.yotatech.com/f116/22r-rebuild-192584/

I've found the answer to my question - Napa and Toyota both make a double seated seal that is thinner/narrower than the original which means that the seal seats in a different place on the crank. In addition, the spring is beefier (no rice) so that the slight undersizing of the crank shouldn't (famous last words) be a problem. I'll be bringing my crank with me when I look at seals to see if this really works. There seems to be differing opinions on how well Speedi - Sleeves work. Some say they work well, others have not had good luck. I know that some people have used them successfully in their dozer final drives, but the rpms and temps are quite a bit lower in a dozer.

Thanks Digitup, you brightened up my day. Paul

[JimAnderson]

Paul,
I would think that if you did not have a leaking rear main before
and the seal had a hundred thousand miles on it you should not have
problems now.That is if the crank was only ground enough to clean
up the groove.It really depends on how much was taken off the
seal area.If only around ten thousanths total was removed the new
seal should work fine.Thats only about one and a half the thicknesses
of a sheet of paper on the radius.Depending again on how much
metal was removed I'd probably run what you got.JMHO.
Luck,JimAnderson

[Dave T]

Don't you think you should mic the seal area and see how much under sized it was ground? There is not much to talk about till you know what it measures, then you can have this discussion. Who ever ground the crank should be able to tell what it was ground to and tell you what seal you need. If they can't then you are probably in serious trouble with the crank. Those R 22 motors are a great motor so make sure you do it right and it should be good for another 100,000 miles or 2 or 3 times that. Good luck.

[Paul Buhler]

Update: I spoke with the machine shop (Hurricane Irene caused loss of power, phones, internet, and roads) who was working on the crank without my input or questions. They only polished the rear main seal area so diameter is maintained within tolerable levels. As said before, the Toyota replacement seal is shallower (~3/8") than the original (~1/2") or the after market Vicon (~7/16") seals. Both the aftermarket and Toyota seals fit "snug" (same ID as well) and landed on clean metal. The Toyota seal costs around $35.00, and the aftermarket seal came in a kit, and was already paid for, so I'll be installing it - It has all the same characteristics of the Toyota seal except the depth.

Since it would be a pain to mess up on this seal (I wouldn't care to have to pull the engine or transmission a second time to fix a leak), I took my time researching my options - thanks for the shared thoughts.
I'm starting the reassembly process - Still have to replace a rod on #3 piston, but once that's done, the engine will go back together pretty quickly - everything's cleaned up and set to go. Paul

[Paul Buhler]

Update: Engine is back together and in the truck. It runs well and is tight. I chose to replace, rather than polish, the harmonic balancer since it was scored and the seal leaked. The rear seal is working well too - no leaks.
On to other things. Paul

[Tigerhaze]

I used to have a 22R in my '83 Toyota pickup and it ran great but leaked oil like a sieve after it got some serious miles on it. I would imagine it had the same issues with the front crankshaft and harmonic balancer as ours snce it mainly leaked out the front.

Still they couldn't be beat for longetivity and fuel milage at the time (carburated).

[Paul Buhler]

I was surprised at how easy it is to remove the harmonic balancer and fix the oil pump seal. The radiator removes in 10 minutes including draining and everything on the front of the engine is exposed. The main crank bolt is torqued at 118 lbs, but putting the engine in 5th with the brake on and a long breaker bar solved that challenge. A bearing puller made life easy for removing the balancer, and there are 4 - 10mm bolts that hold on the oil pump. The seal popped right out and the new one, right in. Assembly took a careful few minutes aligning the big "o"ring in the oil pump - Vaseline was helpful for holding it in place. The balancer only goes on one way, and a rubber mallet worked well. Re-torqued the main bolt and re-assembled the cooling system and filled. Took about an hour start to finish and when there was no leaking I was a happy camper. After the fact, I wish I had replaced the balancer during the rebuild, but I knew that if I had a problem, it would be a reasonably easy fix. If smoothing the original balancer had worked, I would have saved myself 80 bucks. Oh well, now I know. Paul

[digitup2]

Actually I have to quietly agree those 22Rs are good motors we got one in a pickup /camper at the shop and for some Saturday fun we drained all the oil and antifreeze out then started the old truck We put a brick on the throttle so it screamed for thirty minutes and quit ,Seams it ran out of the other needed fluid [gas]. I think the wife's old toy is next for the engine test.I got her some new wheels last week so I get the beater to my self when the kids quit using the Toyota for a third car. Digitup.

[Lu47Dan]

Paul, 22R's still give me nightmares when I think about them. It is one engine I have never had any luck with, and I did not even own one of them.
I had to install 3 of them to get a good one in a Celica, if I remember correctly. All three blow up with a few days of installing them, after third one I refused to do another one.
The next one was in a pickup that was a reman motor that refused to run correctly, I ended up pulling the engine out and taking it to a machine shop and had them tear it down and rebuild it.
I swore off 22R's after that.
Glad to see you have yours running.
Dan.

[JD440ICD2006]

This is a very serious site!
We have now learned where brown rice comes from; it is stained by the oil when used in a crank seal.

It just makes good sense to use rice in a "rice burner".

[Paul Buhler]

I've been happy with my 1984 Toy. I bought it in 1990 and put a Fisher plow system on it from a dying 1980 Toyota truck (frame and body rot). My family teases me about my motorized wheel barrow, but I like having a warm, reliable plow truck that has working brakes, lights, radio and windshield wipers. I'm disappointed, Toy websites talk about 220+ k engines, but mine had hiccups earlier. But like our dozers of choice, I was able to fix it reasonable easily and inexpensively ($580 start to finish).

As usual, fun to chat. BTW, I like some teas, but usually drink coffee - strong.
Rice burner - bah - humbug.