Things I learned while doing a Head Gasket replacement on my 1994 Toyota PU 22R-E engine.

When it came time to replace the head gasket on my 1994 Toyota PU with a 22R-E engine I couldn’t find a good guide. The Chilton Repair manual is good, but it leaves a lot of stuff out.

I am writing this step by step guide after the fact. Hoping it will save someone from the mistakes I made during the teardown.

My truck is a five speed without cruise control. Your vehicle may have different accessories but you should find these instructions helpful.

This truck had a new timing chain, sprockets, chain guides and oil pump installed 30,000 miles ago, so the timing cover didn't need to come off.

If any of you experienced guys and gals see something I left out, or got out of sequence, let me know either by PM or through the forum and I will edit it.

Now, Onto The Job.​

1. Using your favorite engine cleaner/degreaser, clean the engine compartment. Including underside of hood, both inner fenders, firewall and engine.
2. Drain the coolant from the radiator and the block and do not reinstall the block drain plug at this time.
3. Remove the battery, battery hold down and plastic tray.
4. Clean and paint the area where battery was with semi-gloss black paint.
5. Clean and paint the battery hold down with semi-gloss black paint.
6. Buy a head gasket (valve grind) set.
7. Paint both sides of the head gasket with silver paint.

Underneath The Truck.​

8. Drain the engine oil.
9. Remove the starter, fuel filter, fuel filter bracket and oil pressure sender.
10. Unbolt the clamp that holds the header pipe to the bell housing bracket and slide clamp off the bracket leaving the clamp loosely hanging on the exhaust pipe .
11. Remove the 180 degree hose from the intake and water pump.
12. Remove the small by-pass hose.
13. Remove the nuts that hold the heater hose pipe the intake.
14. Remove the bolts that hold the PAIR pipe to the intake.

On Top Of The Engine.​

15. Remove the oil dipstick.
16. Remove the pipes that cross from the air cleaner to the air plenum.
17. Disconnect the throttle cable and housing and lay it on the driver side inner fender.
18. Remove the upper radiator hose and the thermostat housing.
19. Cut the tape holding the ECM wiring harness to the plastic mount on the heater control valve and remove the 3 heater hoses and heater control valve.
20. Remove the exhaust manifold shield.
21. Remove PAIR manifold.
22. Unbolt the exhaust manifold from the head and pull it away from the head.
23. Relieve the tension on the power steering belt.
24. Remove the 4 bolts that attach the power steering pump to the head.
25. Remove the 2 bolts that hold the heater water pipe and the PAIR pipe to the back of the head.
26. Remove the spark plugs.
27. Mark the distributor to head joint with a center punch so when you reinstall the distributor you can place it back in the same exact spot.
28. Disconnect the distributor power feed, remove the distributor and lay it on the driver side inner fender.
29. Disconnect the two vacuum hoses from the power steering pump and lay them over on top of the plenum.
30. Remove the brake booster vacuum hose.
31. Remove the PCV hose.
32. Remove the valve cover breather hose.
33. Remove the two bolts and one nut that holds the EGR valve to the head and the two bolts that holds it to the plenum and pull it away from the head.
34. Remove the four valve cover nuts and screw the four rubber/steel washer/seal from the valve cover mounting studs, remove the valve cover.
35. Turn the engine to TDC so that both valves on number one cylinder are closed and note which two valves are open. Turn engine 180 degrees.
36. Completely back off the adjustment of the two valves you noted in the previous step.
37. Turn the engine 180 degrees to TDC #1 cylinder, compression stroke.
38. Use three zip ties and tie the timing chain to the cam sprocket at 10, 12 and 2 O’clock.
39. Remove the distributor drive gear from the camshaft.
40. Remove the cam sprocket from the cam and let it rest down on the guides.
41. Disconnect the wiring harness from the ECM and ignition module on the driver side inner fender, cut the tape that holds the wiring harness to the last three plastic mounts and lay it over on the passenger side inner fender.
42. Disconnect the fuel supply line from the plenum. There are two washers on this banjo fitting, don’t lose them, they don’t come in the gasket set, I reused my old ones.
43. Unbolt the plenum from the intake. Remove the bolt from the brace bolted to the bottom of the plenum.
44. Unbolt the intake from the head, this has to be done from above and below the engine. There’s one allen head bolt, it takes a 6MM 3/8th inch drive allen.
45. Pull the intake manifold from the head and tie it away from the head. I used a bungee hooked to the intake and stretched over the passenger fender to the wheel well lip.
46. Remove the head bolts per the instruction in the repair manual.
47. Remove the head and rocker assembly.
48. Retrieve the heater and the PAIR pipes from the back of the engine.
49. Using high pressure water, flush the block’s water jacket through the holes in the top of the block. Don’t worry about getting water on top of the pistons and in the crank case, we’re going to flush the crank case later, besides it already had water in the crank case, that’s why we’re doing the HG job.
50. Dry the water off the top of the pistons.
51. Remove plate off back of head.
52. Remove the rocker assembly from the head.
53. Have the head resurfaced.
54. Clean all gasket surfaces.
55. The heater pipe that connects to the bottom of the intake manifold doesn’t take a gasket. It takes an o-ring and it does not come in the Fel-Pro gasket set.
56. Clean all parts, nuts, bolts and washers including the head and block. Pay particular attention to the head bolt holes in the head and get all the carbon out of them.

Underneath The Truck Again.​

57. Support the truck on jack stands so that it leans a little to the passenger side.
58. Remove the oil drain plug using a pan to catch the water you got in the crank case when you flushed the water jacket.

On Top Of The Engine Again.​

59. Pour one gallon of kerosene down the timing chain housing.
60. Clean the head bolt holes in the block
61. Using a clean head bolt, make sure you can screw the head bolt all the way to the bottom of the hole with your fingers. If you can’t, you don’t have the threads clean enough.

Final assembly guide is to be found in another post titled 22R-E Head R&R part 2.​