2001 super charged dbl cab 3.4l rebuild

EditEd

Bought! $1500. Supercharger needs rebuilding, 180,000 miles, I’m now the second owner. Page 3 has pictures from when I first got it home.

 

Yes you can remove the supercharger to get it rebuilt, people do it all the time. If you want to drive the truck around though while it's getting rebuilt, then you need to re-install the stock intake manifold.

The bigger thing I'd be concerned with is the overall health of the truck if it's been supercharged for a long time. I have a supercharged 3.4l too and these engines love to ping when boosted...ping is bad and not everyone knows it. Push an boosted engine too hard while it's pinging and you'll do catastrophic damage to it.

There are fuel modifications that can be done to eliminate or at least lower the chance of pinging. 7th injector kit, bigger fuel injectors, methanol injection, etc. If he wasn't running any of these I would be wary, especially if he was running a smaller pulley on the supercharger.


But to answer your original question, yes you can most definitely take the supercharger off to get it rebuilt. There are a few companies that specialize in doing it, High Speed Labs is one of them (in CO I think). You can do it yourself too depending on how involved you want to get with the rebuild

 

Okay, so this is the original owner. He bought the Tacoma right off the showroom floor, and it was TRD supercharged. I didn’t realize that was a thing for first gens

Is it safe to assume that the 7th injector, and all of the fuel modifications you speak of were done properly?

From what I understand, the gears of the supercharger are shot, but the engine itself runs just fine other than that. I’m going to be going back over to look more in depth either today or tomorrow. Maybe the supercharger oil wasn’t maintained or he used the wrong kind? I’m Still new to the prospect of a supercharged engine so I have a lot to learn.

What would be a top price that you would be comfortable paying considering that either way the supercharger needs to be rebuilt or replaced? It has 180,000miles

 

If the owner thinks you can't remove the sc there's nothing he knows about what repairs it requires or issues its experiencing. Full rebuild is like 1.3k if you just send it out but you'd be best to start basic with inspecting the nose, bearings, and impellors.

 

It still comes back to where the truck lives and grew up .

What is the rest of the truck like?

 

Ya, They kept saying that a “mechanic told us” about one thing or another. I’m not experienced with superchargers but I feel I’m at least capable enough of rebuilding it.

I met these people doing a shower and bathroom remodel for them. They are very happy with the end results and they saw that I drive my blue taco for work. Asked me if I would be interested in it because it’s been a paperweight to them sitting in the driveway.

We’re all in Colorado, I’m pretty sure they have been here since they bought it but I’m not sure about that. He is the original owner.
Probably hasn’t had shocks or coil overs or leaf springs replaced.

It is a 2001 automatic 4 door first gen, black. there is hail damage on the roof an hood, a minor dent in my opinion on one of the fenders, maybe a couple scratches but generally in good shape on the body.
Has a nice bed liner that came from the factory when he bought it and it’s in great shape, no holes or anything. He’s a postman so I don’t think he did to much heavy hauling.

The interior is in really good shape also, maybe a couple minor stains, they did have young kids when they had it operable.

I’ll be going up to the mountains tomorrow to go look at it again. I’ll post some pictures.

What are your guys thoughts on having them start it knowing that there are issues with the supercharger? They say it still runs and drives but sounds horrible because of the superchargers gears grinding. I’m going to inspect it the best I can. But if I’m rebuilding it I would think it shouldn’t be ran with grinding gears in the supercharger Or as minimally as possible? I don’t know what’s your thoughts on that?

Truck has 180,000 miles new tires, water pump and timing belt were done shortly before the supercharger went kaput. Needs new door handle (but who’s doesn’t, damn first gen door handles)



They offered it to me for $1500 with the newish tires. So I’m almost certainly buying it and towing it to my house because I don’t think I can pass on that.

 

Also, what is the possibility, if any, of broken pieces of the Supercharger having made it into the tops of the cylinders? This is something else that they mentioned their mechanic had told them...but I don’t know who this mechanic is, and he also said that the supercharger can’t be removed, it’s from the factory like that. Maybe he was referring to the fact that you can’t just remove it and drive it because the supercharger replaces the plenum as well?
Would it be worth investing the time to pull off the supercharger and look inside? Or would I be able to use a scope to look inside?
Like I said I feel $1500 is such a good deal I can’t pass.

 

For 1500, if it’s rust free...it could have no motor and be worth it. If its a 4wd, Id give you a grand on top and pay to ship it to me too.

 

Superchargers usually don't fail catastrophically - is the truck in a no start condition? It's true you can't drive without the sc if you don't put on a stock intake, but this guy doesn't know his ear from his elbow from what you told us so far about him.

 

1500? If there is no rust you cannot go wrong.

 

If he bought his truck new with the supercharger and the supercharger has 180,000 miles on it,
Then it definitely needs a complete rebuild.
If the bearings went out and that’s why he’s not driving it the supercharger might have more internal issues.

You just don’t know what damage there is till the supercharger is opened up.

It obvious he doesn’t know anything about these superchargers and that’s bad because the supercharger might have run out of oil too or just a bearing.
It’s a gamble!

My rotor seals for some reason started leaking at 70,000 miles on my rebuild.
I only caught this because I do oil changes on my supercharger at 30,000.
At my oil change at 60,000 the supercharger oil was 2/3 gone.

I didn’t realize till later that the seals were leaking.

Long story short 15,000 miles later after changing the oil the supercharger rotor bearings burnt up because the oil had leaked out into the rotors.
The inside case got damaged, the gears were damaged, the rotors got damaged.
So new rotors, new gears, internal case repairs needed.
Ended costing 1500.00 plus,

Your in Colorado And as long as you get a new fuel pump, new fuel filter, injectors cleaned and serviced
You should have no issues with ping.
I’m running a 2” pulley after doing these 3 things and I have zero ping issues with a 5 speed,

I’m in Colorado and close, we can meet up if you want

 

So I heard It run today. The supercharger is definitely making bad noises and is poo. Clack clack clack. It will be a full rebuild forsure. That was my original assumption as well. But trying to listen ‘through’ the supercharger noise, the engine sounded pretty good.

Is it safe to assume that if something had broken and gotten sucked into the engine, the engine would already be scrambled eggs?

It looks like the seals went out and probably ran without much, if any, oil. Bye-bye gears.

But other than the supercharger, the frame has some rust near the back end of the truck around the leaf springs, but not on the front end. I was in a hurry to finish up their bathroom and get home so I didn’t take any picture of the underside but here is the truck

Thanks for the info. Considering I can go buy the truck now for $1500, and I enjoy rebuilding things, I’m having a hard time finding a reason not to buy it. The best part is I already have the wife’s permission. However, I do need to look deeper into what would be considered unacceptable frame rust.

Now, after hearing it i looked around the engine and, while being a supercharger noob, the pulley was steadfast, I couldn’t budge it. Doesn’t that tell me anything about the bearings?
My assumption, having little supercharger knowledge to base it off, is that it ran dry, and parts of a gear went bye bye. It was caked with gunk all around the ‘oil chamber’ .

now my questions if that is the situation, is; if the gears have broken teeth what is the extent of the damage I can be expecting from it having been driven and starting it in that condition?

Would I be able to limp it 50 miles home or if I am going to buy it, should I get it towed and avoid starting it again until I have rebuilt the supercharger?

Also does anyone have good pictures or a link to a thread that has good comparison pictures of what is considered ‘bad’ or unacceptable frame rust Vs ‘good’ or acceptable frame rust?

thanks for helping out

 

The gears don’t normally break, they wear down.

You should NOT take the chance of driving it or running it.

You will cause more damage to the supercharger and possibly engine damage.

1500 is a steal anyway

 

1500, you cannot go wrong. You stumbled into something that I have been trying to find for awhile now. I can’t seem to find anything reasonably priced, and if I do, I’m too late to the party and someone is already on their way to buy it. As far as rust goes, I don’t have a ton of experience in that department because I live in AZ. I would say if it is just surface rust and not putting deep into the surface you’re good to go. If that is the case, just pull the bed, wire wheel down to clean metal and coat with POR-15 or something like it.

 

That was my feeling. I heard it for less than a minute and had him turn it off. as for the the gears and the noise, why would it be making a loud clacking noise do you think? It’s obviously in the rotation as it is a consistent noise. Clacking almost like it sounds like something is hitting the casing? That’s the best I can describe. But I’m also not familiar with the inner workings of a SC. But I will be after I rebuild it

This was my feeling exactly. On the turnoff from the highway to these peoples house, there is an extended cab first gen for sale, I think 98, and it also has about 180,000 miles (granted it doesn’t have a broken SC on it) and it looks in pretty good shape, but are selling it for $7,500.

I’m going to buy it, I think the rust is manageable. I’m sure I can figure something out if it is worse than I thought.

 

When the rotor pack bearings or the needle bearings go out the rotors will be out of alignment and will hit the inside walls and damage the rotors and the case it’s self.
Your rotor or needle bears are shot.

 

Ahh
What you just described, i can exactly imagine making the sound I was hearing.

Before I heard it for myself, he had said something about the mechanic saying gears grinding, so that’s been in my head. When I heard it, it was not grinding. Interesting.

But still, 180,000 mile SC, I’m going to do a full rebuild either way. Is it worth getting a press to do a rebuild?

Im still in reverse sticker shock. I couldn’t believe their offer. However if you aren’t mechanically inclined, and don’t want to spend the time, it probably would be expensive to pay someone to do everything from taking it off, rebuilding it, and reinstalling it.

 

Better run with it before something happens,
If you do the rebuild you will need a press, harbor freight has them cheap enough

 

I’ll post pictures when she’s in my driveway

 

I figure it will be about $150-200 to get it towed 50 miles