[SonyaTheHedgehog]

For a little while my camry was having some problems with slightly lower power and an oil leak, so I opened up the valve covers on the front and rear to replace the gasket, and saw that the interior was absolutely caked in sludge.
After about an hour cleaning I was happy with the reduced sludge and put on the new gasket, replaced spark plugs and put the cover on. Car had idle problems and I fixed it by cleaning the air intake manifold/valve.

The oil leak did not stop and I eventually narrowed it down to the timing belt camshaft oil seals. Replaced both and the timing belt and water pump because previous owner obviously didnt take care of the car.
Car had problems starting, would randomly stop while driving and had massive loss of power at high rpm. I re-did the timing belt and sure enough it was off by about 5 teeth on the crankshaft.
The engine would also smoke a little and would overheat which I fixed by just adding more coolant.

After I re-did the timing belt it still had issues and I bought a new, OEM timing belt. (Never buying belts from autozone/advance auto parts again)
Now, the car runs fine and doesnt smoke like it did before, but during the test drive I noticed that it would have some idling problems, which i didnt really worry about cause they werent major and now it has a tapping/ knocking sound coming from the valve cover.
I opened the belt up again and it was off center, after re-centering it, I started the car and the tapping is still there, but some rubbing sounds are gone.

I used the screwdriver trick and narrowed it down to the center of the front valve cover. It sounds like a deep knocking. It goes away with added RPM and sometimes fades out and comes back. Ive noticed after running the engine for about 10 minutes on idle it started to become a bit more constant but it still sometimes fades out.

Im thinking it could be the timing belt tensioner or something with one of the gears in the valve cover.

This car has given me a lot of trouble over the last few months and im about to start driving it around since it works, and i dont want to send it to a mechanic just to be given a thousand dollar bill...

Thanks,
Aleksey.

 

[Supersonic]

Just to clarify, What year? Are you talking the V6 engine? The other timing belt would be the previous generation, V6 or 4 cyl, to which you could have your topic reposted in the proper section.

 

[SonyaTheHedgehog]

Sorry, forgot to mention its a 2002 toyota camry v6 SE

 

[Supersonic]

Yep, should have re-read your post, both 'valve covers on the front and rear' mentioned may have clued me in. Obviously valve clearance or a weak valve spring could be an issue, without tearing into it too much;

Start with the simple stuff, just did similar chain issue on a 03 Vibe, but
1. VVT oil control solenoid and filter, order new solenoid and or/clean the original, the filter can be cleaned or replaced. I ordered the new one cheap as possible off eBay, but cleaned and used the original solenoid, cleaned the filter screen, but do have a new one on order at the dealer as filter was really no cheaper any where else.
2. replace chain tensioner
3. change the oil again.

Here's what I posted at the Corolla forum, ass I just learned the VVT stuff, never got to change the cam phaser as I sold the car, but that would have been next step for spring;

Timing chain noise here, cleaned the oil control valve and filter and the noise is greatly diminished. This helped me to understand the problem. Waiting on a new replacement valve.

Vvt/Vtc/ oil control Valve Solenoid Complete Info Honda Toyota Hyundai....

Ended up taking the alternator off completely because the filter bolt was stubborn on mine, but here's a tutorial, it's really simple, wished I would have looked into it long ago.

1ZZFE Toyota Corolla Variable Valve Timing Solenoid and Oil Filter 9th Gen

 

[BlackCamSe]

Yep, should have re-read your post, both 'valve covers on the front and rear' mentioned may have clued me in. Obviously valve clearance or a weak valve spring could be an issue, without tearing into it too much;

Start with the simple stuff, just did similar chain issue on a 03 Vibe, but
1. VVT oil control solenoid and filter, order new solenoid and or/clean the original, the filter can be cleaned or replaced. I ordered the new one cheap as possible off eBay, but cleaned and used the original solenoid, cleaned the filter screen, but do have a new one on order at the dealer as filter was really no cheaper any where else.
2. replace chain tensioner
3. change the oil again.

Here's what I posted at the Corolla forum, ass I just learned the VVT stuff, never got to change the cam phaser as I sold the car, but that would have been next step for spring;

Timing chain noise here, cleaned the oil control valve and filter and the noise is greatly diminished. This helped me to understand the problem. Waiting on a new replacement valve.

Vvt/Vtc/ oil control Valve Solenoid Complete Info Honda Toyota Hyundai....

Ended up taking the alternator off completely because the filter bolt was stubborn on mine, but here's a tutorial, it's really simple, wished I would have looked into it long ago.

1ZZFE Toyota Corolla Variable Valve Timing Solenoid and Oil Filter 9th Gen

The 2002 V6 does not use VVTI, they didn’t add it until 03. You can verify this by looking on the intake manifold, if the engine has an EGR valve and tube leading to the manifold it’s non VVTI. You may very well have done the engine in by manually cleaning the sludge out of the engine. With sludge, you want to gradually clean the engine by using a high quality high detergent oil with short change intervals. When you manually clean it, you risk pieces dislodging and clogging vital oil return galleys and clogging the oil pickup. Any way you can post a video of the sounds it’s making? Could be as simple as a valve adjustment. Could be as bad as a spun rod bearing. None the less, if you had that much sludge under the valve covers I’d drop the lower pan, check for metal (bearing material) and clean the oil pickup screen. I’d imagine it’s likely clogged. If you find an abundance of metal in the pan I’d throw in the towel and begin looking for a new engine.

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