Help finding TDC on 3RZ-FE?

Hey everyone,

I've been lurking these forums for a while and finally registered. What a fantastic resource this place is!

I have a question that I have been trying to sort out. But before that I would like to state as a caveat that I am an amateur mechanic and I bought my truck ('98 Single cab 2.7l 4x4) with the intention of wrenching on it and learning along the way to get it into tip top shape. So far I've replaced LCA/UCA bushings, ball joints, added leafs in the rear and put on bilsteins, and just recently removed the old cracked cast iron exhaust manifold and replaced it with a newer mini header.

Now I want to check my valve clearances. I took off the valve cover and I found the 19mm crank for the harmonic balancer pulley. My question is... how do I ensure that piston 1 is in TDC? Isn't there supposed to be a mark on the pulley? I know you can find TDC by taking the spark plug out but I would like to know the easier way of finding TDC.

Any help/pictures would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

here ya go

 

There is a small notch on the pulley that lines up with the degree marks on the oil pump cover. It can be hard to notice unless you are looking for it. You can tell by the camshaft lobes when you are near TDC on cylinder 1, then look for the notch on the pulley.

 

Thanks!!!

 

That document is super helpful. Is that part of a larger set of mechanical documents, and if so where could one find them? Cheers

 

It's from the FSM - a complete one in paper is $100-$400 depending on condition and how lucky you get. Online / PDF manuals exist and if you can get a complete one, it's great. Mine is pretty weak - it's basically explosion diagrams w/ torque specs, but better than nothing.

 

the pdf FSM i.e. manuals are out there in the wild for free, you just have to track them down and download them. There is a "sticky" on the first gen forum, at the very top of the page and one of the postings is about FSM. Your truck is a 1998... the 2003 manual is good enough. Toyota has been making the motors in the first gen for so long and not much has changed mechanically from year to year... emmissions wise, thats a different story.

 

Thanks for all the input, y'all.

I just checked my valve clearances and wow... my intake clearances ranged from 0.005 to 0.006 which is just below the range.... but my exhaust clearances are WAYY too tight.

Most of my exhaust clearances were less than 0.004 (my smallest feeler gauge). I suspect this is because the truck was running with a cracked exhaust manifold for quite some time? What do you think? I know they're supposed to be 0.01 - 0.014.

Anyways, I'm gonna invest in the shim adjustment tools and pull these shims out soon to measure them.

Cheers

 

How many miles on it?

How can put 2 feeler gauges together to get more accurate measurements (if you haven't already). Like a 0.10mm + 0.01mm = 0.11mm. There is some error in each feeler gauge, but this is still a bit more accurate than just using 0.10, 0.125, 0.15mm, etc. (0.004, 0.005, 0.006 in). Although the specs give a range so you don't need to be too precise.

 

There are about 185,000 miles on it. I'm ordering some smaller feeler gauges (0.001 to 0.004 inches) and the valve tools.

Kind of worried that the low exhaust clearances may be indicative of burnt valves... They're just so far off... Is this common?

Cheers

 

If you had burnt valves you'd know it. The compression would be low and it would be hard to start, especially if you had burnt valves in multiple cylinders. You'd have misfires at idle. You could do a compression test and leakdown test to check the condition of the valves and rings.