Anthony y El Burrito Blanco

@BassAckwards had a thread regarding noise they were making when he replaced a head I think and he confirmed you need to prime them before installing them because they drain out slowly. The Car Care Nut has a good segment on how to prime them here:

https://youtu.be/KwPe4fUEFmE?t=1809

The FSM had a really nice section on it too. The cross section helped me visiualize inside of the lifter. I got some small drill bits from HF for $4 and found the perfect size to fit into the check valve passage. It's smaller than the opening at the top of the lifter. I'll measure it when I complete the lifters I'm going to buy because 7/16 failed the compress-by-hand test. The bad ones compressed 1/16-1/8" even after being primed twice without any air bubbles coming out.



@Dm93 and @TnShooter thanks so much for the manual info.

I'm a little unhappy that the Toyota ones are $26 each even with a 20% off online pricing sale going on at my local dealership. Rock Auto has them for less than half on aftermarket lifters. Is OEM worth the big price difference? Got to order some by Sunday so they'll be here asap either way.



https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/toyota,2008,tacoma,2.7l+l4,1441506,engine,valve+lifter,5548

In other news,

Pulled the short block, got a new short block, installed the head today.



Made a little tool for removing the short block. Was rushing hence the off center holes haha.



Due to needing a new clutch at some point now that the OG had 220k on it and the oil consumption of 1 quart every 5k, I wanted to spend the money, get it all done at one time, and got an OEM short block online. @Dm93 you had said that the oil consumption was considered normal and the Car Care Nut, said the same thing (or maybe even 1 quart in less miles) these days. Going through all of this work, I just wanted to spend the $2500 and not be burning that much oil anymore.



The big harbor freight engine stand is great for having to torque head bolts 90* two times. My other "T" shaped stand was not really going to make it easy working alone.



And I made a mistake getting oil at Wally World. I am planning on a 100 mile oil change so I bought two 5 quart jugs. There was a sale and 0W-20 was pretty picked through. I missed that I bought "European" oil. Not only that, but opening one and pouring out green oil was when I found I had made that mistake.



So I plan on returning the other one I didn't open (no wonder - it was the only 0W-20 that wasn't on sale but I was too lazy to go back and check to see why it wasn't on sale when I was at the video game register buying it - life hack btw to skip the check out line at the front of the store). But you think it will ruin my engine if I use it for the 100 mile oil change (5/6 of the first 6 quarts with regular M1 0W-20)?

Apparently one other dumbass did this and he thankfully posted it on Reddit. Last post said he'll need to replace the engine, transmission, radiator springs, and johnson rod - makes me a little concerned haha.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicAd...crewed_up_and_used_european_oil_on_my_toyota/

The last thing I'm considering inspecting is the VVTi gear as I got a strange noise on startup for about 1-3 seconds about 3-4 times spaced out over 6-8 months prior to the HG busting. I am a little intimidated to pull the VVTi stuff off the camshaft...

 

Update. I don't know what or how it happened, but I went out to try to flush the compressable lifters with some ATF to see if I could get them to work, but found some of them would not compress. What the heck? All is good!

 

Great. Otherwise it is a noisy headache.

 

@Speedytech7 @BassAckwards
You guys ever perform a leak down on a new engine? I had 20-25% leak on all cylinders from the exhaust.




All timing marks seemed to be lined up perfect on install.

 

Stuck lifters? Bottom end leak down wouldnt surprise me cause the rings aren't bedded in yet. But valves should be sealing

 

That’s what I had been anticipating. There might be bottom end leakage but the exhaust is leaking more so much that I can’t even notice that.

Should camshafts drop all the way in and rest on the journals when them? When I put them in according the the FSM, like this:



the bearing caps were floating about a 32nd to a 16th of an inch over their mating surface with the head until I used the pressure of the bearing cap bolts to bring the caps down to the head.

It’s weird that both of them required some pushing from the bolts to synch them down all the way but it’s only the exhaust as far as I can tell that it’s coming out of.

 

Yeah there should always be some lash. Hydraulic lifters should just squish down to take up that last little bit. It's possible there isn't a great bleed path for them right now, I would rotate the engine 720° and try your leak down again

 

I'll do that.