Sound Diagnosis - Need help

Hello all,

Forgive me for not participating more before my time of need. I was hoping to do a write up of all my work so far until this came up.

I just finished a 975mi trip from Kansas to Michigan and back. At my last fill up, about a 100mi before my destination, this clattering/knocking noise started. From my research I was thinking cracked flex plate but the noise is not any louder with the inspection plate off the bell housing and I'm not sure if a scratch/line I was seeing is a crack. I can't pinpoint the sound but it seems to be coming from the rear of the passenger cam area. While on leave I did the timing belt job to include cam seals and crank seal. Zero issues/noise on the trip for the first ~900 miles.

Attached is a clip of the sound with the inspection plate off of the bell housing. The sound increases in relation to rpm. Down hill or flat driving it was quiet, going uphill/accelerating the sound increases. It almost sounds like an exhaust leak but more like physical contact between parts.

https://youtu.be/q5pqHkSyIW8

Also attached is a list of the new parts that went on with the timing belt job.


Thank you for any and all help!

 

Sure sounds like a big exhaust leak

 

At idle I agree, I will go out and take another video revving it a little.

 

https://youtube.com/shorts/ubcMjLDmtpw?feature=share

https://youtu.be/2lYFf6zV3Lw

 

Sounds like an exhaust leak to me. I'm suspecting one of the seals on either side of the cat. Get a kleenex or similar and see if it's getting blown around at the joints.

 

Gotcha, I'll report back

 

No movement from a napkin around the cats. No movement around the collector gaskets either. The noise is near the rear of the passenger side header. I went in to retighten all those studs a week after putting the headers in (2 months* ago) and they were still snug.

That would be great if this is just an exhaust leak, I will trying tightening the studs on the passenger side later tonight.

 

Which headers were installed, how long ago, and do you know what gaskets were used at the manifold and at the collector?

I had an exhaust leak at the rear of the passenger side manifold and while it was tolerable at idle it became really noisy with just the slightest bit of throttle.

 

I installed JBA Shorty's two* months ago with Klingersil Thermoseal gaskets. I cut out my own collector gaskets out of remflex. I did the headers because of the exhaust leak from the stock manifolds, this sound seems more substantial than the old exhaust leak if that makes any sense.

 

It's totally possible the leak is at the header itself. But that sound in general, is classic sound of exhaust leak IMO. And if you worked on the headers recently ... I mean, it'd be an uncanny coincidence if it wasnt.

 

When putting my hand behind the passenger valve cover I can feel the exhaust escaping from the header. I was only able to get an 1/8 of a turn out of one of the studs so thinking its a gasket failure. Thank you all for your help/suggestions.

Going to order some better gaskets and maybe use this as an excuse to finally spend the money on a dirty deeds exhaust. Going to be a bit of a pain to replace the gaskets as I had to take off the motor mounts and jack the motor up to fit the short tubes in.

Cheers everyone

 

Percy/Taylor or OEM Toyota is the way to go for manifold gaskets.

 

JBAs raised ports aren’t true, so they don’t mate well with oem gaskets to the heads

 

I just realized that the headers I put in are actually 'pacesetter' brand. I got them from someone on fb marketplace with that gasket I used included.

The gaskets on the underside are what I used, no I did not double stack them.

 

JBA (Left) vs Pacesetter (Right) for anyone curious
I believe the fb marketplace guy I bought the pacesetters off of said he paid someone to coat them. The corrosion shown is after 2 months/2k miles on my truck.