OEM and Rock Product Timing Set Comparison

The timing chain is a well know weakness on the 22RE. The guides can break in as little as 30k and cause serious problems to the engine. There are two school of thought as to the cause, and on how to solve the problem. The obvious solution is to use metal backed guides to make them unbreakable. The question is what if the rubber on the metal backed guide breaks down, then it will be metal on metal with metalic shavings going into the oil. The other school of thought is the problem originates from tensioner malfunction. The chain behaves nicely if the tensioner is doing its job in keeping the chain tensioned just like the derailieur on a bicycle. When the tensioner gets stuck or sticky, then the chain becomes loose and slaps around.

The most important thing is to change the oil regularly. When I neglected to change the oil for 7k miles, the aftermarket tensioner started to malfunction, and the chain was rattling at startup.

The tensioner that came with my Toyota operated very smoothly even with side load on the tensioner. The guides had hardly any measurable wear on them. The aftermarket on was a little more sticky when you try to operate it with a little side load. The engnblder tensioner that I got was not of very good quality. It got stuck in mid travel while I was playing with it. Some oil will probably improve that. Ted at engnbldr offered to get me a new one. However, I don't want to take a chance, and got the OEM tensioner. It was dissapointing to see that the new OEM tensioner was not as smooth as I remember on the original one that came on the truck.

On the new OEM one, I don't seem to see any chrome plating on the shaft, and the surface finish is rougher than I would like to see. Chrome plating is very harmful to the enviornment, and many manufactures stop doing it. Guess Toyota probabl took off the chrome plating on the new batch of tensioner. Good for the environment, but bad for performance. I read on outdoorwire.com newsgroup that OSK makes the best timing component while engnbldr.com (Rock Products) makes a poor quality one. OSK tensioner use material and design similar to OEM, and has a chrome plated shaft like the OEM one.

engnbldr.com (Rock Product) tensioner stuck