engine swap

My questions:

I'm looking for some advise about: where I might buy a good 3RZ-FE engine for my '98, or even if I can??, or if it's just too risky to do this?

Is there a company or two any of you can recommend for a re-manufactured engine, OR
possibly is there some way to trust the mileage on a used engine, like off of eBay?

Or do you not recommend trying to replace the engine in a '98?

What I've already tried:

I bought what I thought was a top quality re-manufactured engine from a company with a BBB (Better Business Bureau) 'A+' rating. But this company sent me 2 bad engines, the 2nd to fix the first. Both failed and I still don't have my money back. I've also since learned that the 'A+' BBB rating now comes NOT from a good reputation, but rather when a company pays the BBB. And an 'F' rating is if a company won't pay the BBB. Oh, wow. I just love YouTube, but wish I'd known this earlier. So the bottom line is that the BBB ratings are now corrupt, and not to be trusted.

Both engines they sent overheated under normal load. I also found exhaust in the coolant which confirmed their heads were leaking. On the 2nd engine I removed the head and discovered evidence of widespread leaking. There were white boiling stains at the water holes.



First a precision straight edge and feeler gauge confirmed the block and head were flat.

But on the block side of the head gasket there were dotted lines in the metal head gasket rings around the 4 cylinders. These matched the unsmooth machining ridges in the block.



Since I don't have a $1000 surface roughness instrument, someone recommended I run my thumbnail over the surface and it should be smooth. But when I run my thumbnail over these blocks I can feel it, as it goes zzzzipp, as I go across the the ridges and valleys left behind from the cutting tool.

Tip: I have discovered I can inspect the surface roughness without removing the head, by looking for a part of the block or head that protrudes from the other, and then inspecting that exposed surface area.



Anyway even after some smoothing from a random orbital sander and super fine paper used for polishing solid surface counter tops, and with a new top quality head gasket and bolts this 2nd engine still overheated, just a little slower than before.

I already have a new clutch, all new rubber hoses, a new radiator etc., and my truck torn apart, ... and the rest of the truck is fine with a nice shell and lumber rack, so I just need a new engine that is worth something.

Thanks for your ideas, comments, or any help.

 

Curious what happened to the original? High miles? Cracked head? Low compression?

There’s quite a few companies that sell them. Jdm prob the most popular but they didn’t have any when I just checked...

 

Slowly lost power over the past few years. This spring I found cylinder #3 and #4 with very low pressure, and #2 somewhat low, but with #1 ok.

This is my work truck, and I've carried many heavy loads over the years, so have worked it hard. Still, I got 198k miles before this tear-down.

 

Gotcha. Well, it’s always a roll of the dice on a used one. Sorry to hear about your bad luck so far. Hopefully someone more savvy than me will have some good info.

 

Find a low milage one from a dismantler. They don't lie about the milage because it's verifiable by the VIN stampped on the block. "Mycarfax" will let you verify the last reported milage for free.

 

What was the problem with the two you got?

 

Thanks, and there is a number on the block, but it's a serial number, not the VIN, and although I have searched, so far I haven't found a way to translate a serial number to a VIN.

 

They ran nice and had good power, but they easily overheated.

First they would come up to temperature and correctly self regulate for a little while (at almost exactly 50% of scale).

But then when put under any load, like driving it down the highway 2 miles on a cool morning they would start to overheat.

I replaced the water pump, thermostat, radiator, radiator cap, coolant (and used coolant test strips for 50% mix), hoses, and fan belt.

I also know there really was coolant flowing because both the heater worked and the incoming radiator hose was hot. Also once these engines overheated, if I pulled over and ran the engine open at 2000 RPM the temp would magically start to decline, which could only happen if there was coolant flowing, a good radiator, and a working fan to cool the engine down.

Because it's so much work to change out an engine, I spent about a month going over, and over every other thing carefully that could cause the overheating, like vacuum leak testing the coolant, and vacuum filling the radiator, although I think the no-spill funnel works much better at getting any bubbles out of the water.

BTW, learned that after the thermostat opens and you get your bubbles out with the no-spill funnel, you have to then be careful to shutdown before the engine gets too hot or you'll boil and have to start again. Instead turn off and let the engine cool before re-testing with the no-spill funnel to confirm no more bubbles are coming out, then again shutdown and cool, before putting the radiator cap on and testing. Then it's important to have the radiator cap on when testing, because it raises the boiling temperature of the coolant mix.

Finally I bought the test kit and discovering the exhaust in the coolant water. That was the smoking gun of a head gasket leak or head crack, or something like that internally wrong.