Salvageable? Or new to the truck engine? 3rz-fe blown head.

Does anyone know what these seemingly siliconed in plugs are on the exhaust side of this 2002 2.7 head?

 

Could you take a look at that photo and help me out? I can't figure out what these are plugging.

 

They aren't siliconed, they're heat checks. Those little things change color if you overheat the head. Rebuilders put them on there so they can deny warranty work if you overheat the thing. They aren't plugging anything

 

Well shoot, there is a wasted frantic hour of searching. I appreciate your response to a novice question.

 

Be sure to check and adjust your valve lash (gap) before installing the motor. Checking isn't too hard, but it's kind of a pain in the butt to change out the little spacers. These motors are notorious for stretching valves. If the lash is not correct, you will burn a valve and be stuck with another head rebuild. I learned about that the hard way.

 

I didn't end up needed to change the valve cover on this "new" engine. Do I really need to take the valve cover off and check the valve lash?

 

Toyota recommends valve lash check/adjustment on this motor fairly regularly. It's been a bit since my build, but it seemed like every 30-40,000 miles. I think it will last much longer, but it's not too unreasonable to check. Most of these seem to show bad issues past 150,000 miles. Mine was just over 200,000 when the valve went tits up. Unfortunately I didn't know about the lash until I lost compression in a cylinder. Really not a good motor design for Toyota.

 

Well I took the valve cover off and it looks like some lighter colored oil in there sitting on top of the cam bolts. Does this look worrisome? Or is this ok for an engine that hasn't been run in two weeks with no oil in it? I flipped the engine over and got some more oil into the pan, I poured that out into a clear container to see if there was an coolant settling out in the bottom, I'll look later today. This is the engine I got from the salvage yard with 153k on it. The compression was good and the truck drove into the lot with a rear end collision.

 

The oil looks like it has some water in it. Could be from condensation (not problematic), or much worse, like a cracked head with coolant contamination. I'd inspect the head and water jackets. Might even want to have it magnafluxed to try to ID small cracks not readily visible.

 

He just bought a junkyard engine so he wouldn't have to take the original apart.

Oil prob. just has some condensation on top. Check the valve lash since you're there and put it in.

Just gonna have to trust it really.

Yea the valves need checking, it's time. They do get tight sometimes and you don't want that. They don't stretch, the hard seats get pounded into the soft aluminum head, making the clearance up top get smaller. This makes the valve hotter and a vicious cycle is started 'til it burns one.