So I’ve timed about 5 2UZ-FE Vehicles and this is the first one that’s given me an issue and I’m really trying to figure out why what happened, happened. To give you guys a timeline of events:

1. I had a buddy text me about a month ago asking for a price on a timing job for his 05 Sequoia. He politely declined and said he wanted to try and give it a shot himself, sounds good to me! I got him a parts list and a few tips and things to replace along the way. 

2. Friday night he texts me that he needs some help as he was unable to get the crank bolt off. No biggie, I run over help him get the bolt off and end up helping him finish the job. Probably one of the smoothest timing jobs I’ve had as well. All new bolts, new ASIN kit, a few new sensors, the works. I would like to note that after we pulled the pin on the tensioner we confirmed that the engine was still in time and we were able to turn the engine over by hand, 5 complete cycles. Spark plugs were out so we weren’t fighting compression and it was very very smooth. I had taken a photo of the crank with the belt on it to confirm the marks were all lined up, but didn’t grab any of the cams but I can verbally confirm they were. 

3. We get everything back together, torqued to spec every single bolt (amazingly) and had no bolts left over. And we go to start it and it instantly sounded like a valve his a piston. It only cranked for about a tenth of a second but the damage was done. 

4. At this point we can’t turn the motor over by hand all the way, we get a decent ways but it hits a hard stop. 

5. Today, Sunday, we take everything apart, looks like the belt jumped but we can’t actually get the motor to where the timing marks are lined up because of the hard stop. We take off the belt and the tensioner, get everything back lined up. Between the hard stops of the motor I was able to get to TDC on every cylinder to perform a leak down test. Every cylinder tested 10% but 1 was 20% and 8 was 15%. I’m guessing these are our culprits. Belt has the right number of teeth and the new tensioner looks to be in good shape. 

We are about to pull valve covers to try and see if we can see any valves hanging up and if we do we will tow it to my shop and pull heads. I guess I know what happened but I just don’t understand why. My buddy’s being super chill about and he got the vehicle for $2500 and it’s not his daily so he isn’t super stressed (a whole lot less than I am). Really at a loss with this one, I’ve been working on cars since I was 14, and being 22 now, this is really the first major f\*\*\* up I’ve dealt with. 

Interesting timing Job Debacle