3.4 motor replacement

Hello all, I'm a long time user and reader but have never contributed much as far as threads go. With my last project I figured I should share to help other people like myself with your next project. I have owned a 04 taco for 7 years and drove it up 268,000 miles and on a hunting trip in the fall of 2021 the motor took a crap and I decided I was going to do a motor replacement myself. I've never done any serious mechanic work so for me this was a big under taking

Starting the process

End of day 1, this is my first undertaking of this size of project so I'm taking everything slower than most


Day 2&3 got the motor and trans removed

Thoroughly decreased and cleaned the engine bay

Disassembling the old 5vz to only find out that nothing actually happened to the internals and the motor problems were diagnosed as a fan clutch that went bad

Had a motor mount that was sheared off, only god knows how many miles I drove with only 1 motor mount, fortunately I'm a welder for a living and this was a relatively easy fix for me

Fabled new motor mounts out of1/4" 316 ss to never have that issue again
Side view of the tig 309 carbon to stainless
Starting to assemble to shiny new 5vz, I didn't use any old parts on the motor other than valve head covers, oil pan, Ac Condenser and some hoses
Mated new motor up to trans and ready for install

New motor installed, wiring was definitely the most challenging part of making the whole thing come to life, if anyone has questions about the wiring on these motors I'll be happy to help out

At this point the whole thing started to come together, had the motor running and am anxious for the first test drive
Took on a drive and banged it on the Rev limiter to make sure it's put together right, then started to fab up some bumpers the final product I couldn't be happier with, I work out of town full time so I only had on average 2 days a week to work on it, whole project from start to finish took me 6 months. Had I not had to wait for certain parts to be shipped it could have been put together even quicker than that. If anyone is debating about doing this same project I highly encourage you to do it, it's not as challenging as I thought it would be and it taught me about every moving part on the truck. entire build was around 6k. If anyone has questions feel to ask

 

Wow so you took your whole engine out and it just ended up being a bad fan clutch? Ouch. At least you put some headers on which made pulling the motor worth it. Hope you don't have to do it again, but I can do an an engine swap in these in an afternoon just pulling the hood. It's just an easy truck to work on, which is why I'll have mine forever. You gained a ton of valuable experience, no doubt!

 

So you found out the fan clutch failed and the engine overheated, but nothing mechanically was wrong? Or did you blow a head gasket?

 

Never overheated, more or less did the swap as a bucket list goal, mechanically the old motor is perfect which is amazing after how many miles I put on it banging it off the Rev limiter, decided on keeping the old one and putting in forged internals to make a motor that I can put serious boost through

 

Where did you get the red timing belt cover? Great job, by the way.

 

Timing belt cover was a black one I ordered then just painted it red. A little redneck art job lol

 

I am jealous of those headers! Nice job on the swap!