... What's under that plastic case on the pulley end? It doesn't look like it would be easy to remove.
Also....no Check Engine light is on.

Idler pulley, Tensioner pulley, timing belt, and ... * Water Pump.

 

Had that happen with the '93. Irregular noise, stop and start. Water pump.

 

You need to look under the cover. not too hard to remove.

 

I would definitely NOT RUN THE ENGINE as it's possible that a part has broken and is getting thrown around inside the timing belt cover. If a broken part gets snagged up by the rotating timing belt it could throw it into the CAM SPROCKET or CRANKSHAFT pulley causing a much MORE EXPENSIVE repair. It's not that difficult to remove the accessories to get to the timing belt upper cover and take a peek into the timing belt area and see what broke. The AISIN water pump pulleys have aslo been known to break or chunk off and drop down in the cover.

 

1994 Camry LE 2.2L Water Pump Failure

 

That is EXACTLY what the car sounds like....looks like I'm gonna replacing the water pump....or getting quotes on getting it done. Looks a bit intimidating...watched a couple of vids on yt but never dealt with interfering with timing. Also some commented to replace oil pump seals while in that area. There is a leak from somewhere on the back of the engine, might have to get serious about fixing that while I'm there (if I do it). Any recommendations on brand names for pumps and/or seals?

 

Water Pump - Aisin. There is also cheaper Aisin pump on rockauto that just comes with a gasket and no housing.

Camshaft Seal - National, or Timken
Front Crank Seal - National, or Timken

 

Here's a pretty good YouTube video on the Timing Belt/Water Pump maintenance procedure for 1997-2001 Toyota Camry 2.2L

 

I'd get full Aisin TB kit (TKT002) with mitsuboshi belt, Aisin WP and a couple oil seals, unless you just did TB, but you would have done WP too so I'm guessing...you didn't?

With starter blip method its about 4h the first time as I remember

 

Timing belt flutter most likely


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

OP, if it sounds like marbles in a coffee can, it may well be the WP bearing which will shortly be followed by a failure of the seal and the concomitant major leak.

 

First, I appreciate very much the comments and links to useful videos, thank you all. I'm probably going to do it myself, I'm retired and got the time. Planning to get the whole pump body since I'm pretty sure the pulley is scraping the body. Now, I have had for months a leak somewhere on the back (firewall side) dripping down eventually on the exhaust. I've looked but can't see where it's coming from. Is there something on the firewall side of the motor in that area that could leak, like a bad oil pressure sensor?

 

Here is the firewall side of the Toyota 5S-FE engine with the intake manifold orifices visible on the cylinder head. The most obvious culprit would be a leaking valve cover gasket or the oil pan gasket. The oil pump gasket usually leaks after 100K and is mounted on the bottom of the enigine block, under the timing belt cover. The PCV valve is also located on the rear of the engine.

 

OP,
Had the same leak on my '94. All the tube seals were loose, a couple not even finger tight. Torqued them to the old spec of 17#. Leak gone.

 

Don't just jump into a fix before confirming the cause.

1. You may do the simple things first by removing the alternator & AC drive belt. When did you last change the timing belt?
2. Does the noise occur only during drive or idle (in P, N or R or D)?

I just fixed half of a clunking noise on my 1998 Camry. I went all the way starting from timing belt tensioner to motor mounts and in the end it was due to engine vibration with a loose hood anchor.
The hood latch spring is not tight enough to hold the hood causing the clunking noise under vibration under idle in D or R, not so much in P or N. The noise disappears after padding the two rubber anchors to keep the hood latch tight.
The next issue is to fix the engine vibration that seems due to exhaust leak near the exhaust manifold. The reason is the vibration feels stronger under cold than hot conditions, and also under low rpm.

 

Just read the whole thread twice, saw no mention of how many miles are on it and has the timing belt has ever been changed. It sounds like the water pump is going out, what you need to be concerned with is all that entails replacing water pump and timing belt. Timing belt needs to be changed every 90-100k, and most everyone here on TN treat timing belt and water pump as a set, since you need to uncover all items to do the job. If timing belt has 90k on it, so does the water pump, tensioners and idlers.

Do yourself a favor and buy the Aisin kit, as it is OEM and contains timing belt, tensioners, idlers and water pump. Tear it down and replace all those components. I am a DIY'er but had never done a timing belt. With this forum and a few other online sites, I did my 01 V6 successfully.

 

I agree it sounds like something under the timing cover -- timing belt loss of tension, water pump going bad, etc. Many service items are under this cover, water pump, oil pump, timing belt, tensioner, idler pulley, seals. These should be replaced anyway at about 100,000 miles, and it is so much trouble to open it up that it is smart to replace all of them while you are in there. I bought a Gates kit, Gates makes very good belts and hoses, but later on Amazon reviews I read that Gates water pumps sometimes failed early. So with the car apart, I went to NAPA on a Sunday and got the bigger Aisin kit which includes the entire water pump with backing plate attached.

Just to look inside the upper timing cover, you have to take off the "dog bone" engine stabilizer mount with its brackets, the alternator and its brackets, etc. The four cylinder is actually harder than the six cylinder because it's pushed right up against the wheel well, very little room for wrenches. Some suggest lifting the pulley end of the engine a bit to get more clearance. The V6 is only 3 cylinders wide, so you have more room.

Is there a Toyota specialist garage in your area? Good reviews on Nextdoor, Facebook, etc? Call them and get a price for a FULL timing belt job. Then add up the parts prices for doing it yourself and compare. Don't forget the tools you need: Torque wrench, tool to hold the cam gear while you unbolt it, tool to pull cam and crank seals, tool to install cam and crank seals, impact wrench to undo crank bolt, puller to remove crank pulley and crank gear, tool to hold crank pulley while you torque it back on. Some of these tools can be "rented" for free from your local parts store.

Professionals don't always do it right, though. I took my '99 to a highly regarded import garage for the timing belt, and it failed 50,000 miles later. When I took it apart, I found that they had left off the big washer that keeps the timing belt from walking off the end of the crankshaft belt gear. The belt had wandered over occasionally and gotten chewed up by the edges of the gear teeth. I replaced everything myself this time and it lasted until I sold the car 100,000 miles later. (I told the buyer that the timing belt was due)

The 4th generation Camrys and the 5S-fe engine are kind of a pinnacle of design and engineering, and well worth fixing.

 

To add to the discussion: We got the car when it had under 50k miles (a genuine little old lady car....my wife's aunt) so I'm pretty sure nothing had been changed but routine stuff. Has about 120 on it now, so it's time for the timing belt change and all related stuff under the dust cover. I carelessly broke the bottom dust cover prying it off (got some kind of foam seal on it) so I gotta find one of those. Rock Auto had the upper but not the lower. Thanks again to everyone who has commented, I'll update when stuff happens.

 

Well....this is taking me a while (it's not an urgent repair as my wife has a backup vehicle) but I finally got the water pump out and it is really bad. The pulley shaft was so worn, the timing belt was loose and the impeller blades got into the body, so I'll be getting the whole assembly. I guess I should probably flush the block and radiator since there's probably some aluminum slivers scattered in there. Here's a pic for the curious.

 

The oil leak down the back side of the engine may be the common valve cover gasket leak (the 4 spark plug tube nuts has a tendency to loosen over time). You can use a Fel-Pro valve cover set with tube seals from rockauto. If you remove the cover, take the time to check valve clearance as well. The exhausts might be a tad tight but should still be within limits at 120K.

Consider resealing the half-moon plugs with RTV, and reseal the distributor plug behind the spark plug coils. Half-moon and distributor plugs reseal:

Full & Half-Moon Plug Resealing on 1997-01 5FSE 2.2L...

I can usually read a write-up or two and go and do the job. However, I have done quite a bit of reading about this DIY, and nothing I read was easy for me to understand. It took forever to find the location of the half-moon plugs and distributor cap (our engine doesn't have the distributor)...

www.toyotanation.com

120K is where I personally would change out the valve stem seals, with a Fel-Pro set. But others will wait much longer. You might not want to open up a can of worms with that at 120K miles, but here's some info:

DIY - 5S-FE valve stem seal R&R/valve clearance...

What's up Toyota people, today we're handling some top-end work on our humble 5S-FE 4cyl motors, specifically removal (and replacement!) of the valve stem seals and adjustment of the valve clearances. So why would you need to do valve stem seals? Well, if you get a puff - or a cloud, if it's...

www.toyotanation.com

This one is for the Corolla, but similar:

DIY Valve Stem Oil Seal Replacement Without Removing...

This is a Do-It-Yourself guide to replacing the valve stem oil seals on the 7A-FE or 4A-FE engine found on 7th generation Corollas. It assumes that you already have the camshafts off and have removed the shims and buckets from each valve. Since you have to remove the camshafts to do this, it...

www.toyotanation.com

And use the 5% off discount code if you buy from rockauto, scroll to the newest post:

RockAuto Discount Code

Hey guys, I got this discount code but it will expire on October 24th and I won't be using it. I don't know if it can be used more than once so whoever uses it first might be the only one to get it. All you do is put this number "38391513162399" without the quotes in the "How did you hear...

www.toyotanation.com

 

Yes, it is time to do/inspect all the things you should have been doing/inspecting since 2009........

 

Well, got a new problem now. The original problem was water pump failure. While I was doing that, I replaced more items because there were oil leaks under the timing covers and on the rear of the block. Replaced spark plugs (they were past due), valve cover gasket and tube seals, EGR valve and grommet, water pump with body, crankshaft seal, camshaft seal, oil pump shaft seal and oil pump cover o-ring, idle pulley and tension pulley. I marked the cam and crank timing marks with whiteout before removing the timing belt and pulleys and rotated them several times in the process using a ratchet on the crank pulley. There was resistance (I assume from compression) but I had no problem turning the engine over with the ratchet wrench....I repeat, no problem.
So now, I'm ready to assemble everything...the plugs are in, the valve cover is back on and the timing marks are still where I had them....the cam and crank had not been moved since I removed the original timing belt. I watched several videos and thought I was ready. I threaded the belt on the pulleys, keeping the slack out of the belt path from the top of the crank, around the water pump and idler pulley down to the crank pulley. I already had the tension pulley tightened down to allow slack on that side of the belt path, and threaded the belt on the cam pulley. I then released the tension pulley to take up the slack. Per directions, I rotated the crank clockwise two turns to bring the timing marks back into alignment again, and they were spot on.
And here is where things didn't go according to expectations. I rotated the crank clockwise 7/8 turn (I assume this is to set the tension?) to bring the crank timing mark to the line on the bottom timing cover. I over shot it and backed it up a bit. I didn't go past TDC. Then I tightened up the tension pulley, and, as a test, rotated the crank using the ratchet wrench to check the timing marks for the last time. I never got to TDC....it stopped just before TDC and would not go any further no matter how hard I tried. The belt seemed to have proper tension and I thought since this was a non-interference motor, there would be no danger if the timing was off, though I didn't see now that could have happened. I put it all back together, put antifreeze mix in the radiator and tried to start it. It would turn over but not start. I ran the starter for about 5 seconds for 3 attempts and it didn't sound like it was trying to start.
That was on this past Tuesday the 24th. I was so disgusted I abandoned it and watched more videos to see if I had missed something, but discovered no new insights. Today,I took everything off but the alternator and tried to rotate the crank without the belt. It won't go past TDC from either direction even with a long handle 1/2 drive ratchet. I took the plugs out and it rotates easily until I approach TDC from either direction. It definitely feels like it bumping into something at TDC, it bounces back just a bit when you are turning it and it stops at TDC.
At this point, I am lost. It's a non-interference engine but this sure feels like it's hitting something internally, though when I put it all together and tried to start it, it didn't seem to hesitate at any point. I have the factory manual and it appears that what I did was correct EXCEPT for overshooting the TDC and moving it backward a bit. But I don't see how that would do anything but change the tension pulley position. I tried to re-time it today....I can get the cam on the mark but not the crank, I can not get it to reach TDC by manually turning it.
The short version of all the above: Before removing the belt, the crankshaft would rotate all the way around with only a little resistance.
After: The crankshaft (without the belt) can not be rotated to TDC from either direction even with a lot of manual force.
Any suggestions?

 

Short paragraphs make reading a lot easier.

 

Remove the belt,

Remove the spark plugs,

confirm crank / piston free-wheels
if NOT, -STOP- ,
* remove harmonic Balancer - check that Timing Belt Guide is installed properly,

set Cam @ TDC, * If ANY doubt, pull Valve Cover, and observe / confirm that Cam Lobes
are off of Cylinder #1 valves / that both Intake and Exhaust valves are -closed-,

use a wood dowel in Cyl #1 to observe rise / fall of cylinder ... and set Crank @ TDC,

manually rotate tensioner, idler oil pump, water pump pulleys 1 complete rotation, to ensure they are free / no binding -

when everything is confirmed good / lined back up: put belt back on and try again.

* did you damage (something) by excessive rotating engine in wrong direction during belt installation? Dunno.
---

Hope this helps.