SOLVED! Post 2853 Leaking Injectors, Dealer Techs Rock! Extended Cranking after Engine Swap 3.4L 5vz

I am a big fan of pulling the motors myself, letting the machine shop do the machine work to the head and block, let them reinstall the crank and pistons and cam and do the rest myself, rebuilding or replacing auxiliary parts as I go.

This is NOT a job for a newby working in a wet driveway. I would ask around on who ran a good machine shop, every city has one!

 

Hehehe, 8 stitches. For some reason the cut is shaped just like the drivers side radiator support.

 

^ my thoughts exactly.
I dont believe clevite, king, acl, crown etc bearings are anything near the quality of a factory toyota part. All of the above are reputable automotive bearing suppliers and companys like,jasper use them and from my experience a jasper engine rarely lasts 100k.
Same goes for gaskets as well- felpro, victor etc. are inferior compared to a oem japanese gasket like toyota or stone imo.
Most low budget engine exchange places use chinese internal parts and gaskets from suppliers like evergreen automotive or where ever they can get stuff the cheapest.
Now add in substandard machine shop services on top of junk internals and you have a recipe for disaster.
Get on carpart.com and find yourself a low mileage 3.4 and just do a plug and play swap with new fluids- it will by far be the cheapest route and easiest for you.
Fwiw i've bought dozens of junkyard engines- probably somewhere near 50 or so and have only got 3 bad ones.

 

We must live in different worlds...of the last six engines I have gotten out of yards, two had to be totally rebuilt before install, one had a cracked block, one had a leaking oil pan that was almost impossible to remove, one has a busted external oil pump, and one blew gobs of blue smoke. One EVERY one, I would have been better off paying a machine shop to build a new long block out of the core.

So, unless I go to the yard to get a good rebuildable core, not really interested...

Howard

 

sure, if you buy it blind and don't check it first because you are buying "junk" engines and NOT good running engines from wrecked vehicles.

vehicles that are not wrecked are in the yard because they have bad engines so that is why you never buy an engine that's not still in a car so you can see its a wrecked car and hear the engine run and test compression on it.

from your own words you obviously never checked compression on those engines or ran them before buying them so that is your own fault you did not use good judgement or you must just be going buy engines off the ground in the scrap pile or dealing with unscrupulous people because salvage yards don't want to get a bad rep and try to stand behind what they sell and make sure you know exactly what you are getting.

I have had more engines I purchased as "rebuilt" or "refurbished" that start smoking on me within a year as steady as clockwork and I will never again buy one from those engine exchange places because they take worn out engines and just put new rings in them and send them out the door with a fresh paint job so in less then a year when the rings break in your blowing smoke.

 

Keakar pretty much hit it 100%
Whenever I buy from a yard I look the vehicle over- I never buy engines off a shelf or crate- check the oil, mostly look for an oil change sticker in the windsheild. Common sense- if the vehicle has 4 bald tires, low on oil, low on coolant and looks like a homeless person lived in it then buying parts from a vehicle like that your asking for problems.
Im also not buying a 350 chevy from a 1976 truck thats rotted away and expecting it to be in excellent shape...
As far as trouble removing an oil pan- been there...
I had a 2001 rav4 in the shop that I had to drill, tap and install inserts in the block for the head bolts. I bent the damn oil pan so bad it almost had to be replaced from trying to remove it- toyota gray seal packing is some tough stuff.
No matter what you do to a vehicle, especially a project of this caliber there are going to be some sort of hang ups to deal with.

 

Thanks for the input guys. Seems like there are lots of different opinions on the question of whether quality/reliability is best w/used engine vs. rebuild of ours vs. buying a rebuilt/reman'd engine. At least I can feel confident that I asked a good question! And it's nice to hear all the different opinions - sure, life would be peachy if crap like this was all cut and dry, but since it's not, it's helpful to hear all of your perspectives as to WHY you think one option is better than the other. You all seem to be making good, logical points about your preferences, so I'm learning lots from all of it.

This morning's focus has been calling dealers to find out how insane costs would be to purchase factory parts from them to build ourselves a brand new Toyota engine. $15-20,000. Never hurts to ask, right? BUT, they said a brand new Toyota factory short block is $3000. Hmmm. So in theory, we could hoist our old long block out, then take it and our new short block to a machine shop, then they machine our top components and rebuild it all into a dressed long block and we install it, right? BUT, now I understand much more clearly why many of you have told us to "pull the head, pull the head, DO IT NOW!" - dealer said yep, you could do that plan, but if head is cracked, new factory head is $1100, plus even then you'd likely have issues w/new head fitting properly w/old components from our top end. Just finally googled a photo of a "head" - wow. Makes sense why they are so damn expensive and difficult to machine. Lots of little nooks and crannies in that thing. But, I just don't think husband is comfortable "pulling the head" to find out. That could change though, considering each day takes us in a totally new direction. Anyway, dealer said if we did that plan (short block for 3000, take it and old engine to machine shop), and found out head was cracked, then we'd be better off ditching that whole idea and putting in a used or reman'd engine (which I'm pretty sure is what some of you guys have been saying from day 1 - check the head, then decide what to do). It takes me a while to absorb all this engine talk, what can I say? So then we'd have this $3000 factory short block we couldn't use, and a bunch of $ spent at a machine shop to find that out - hmmm....wonder what Toyota's return policy is. And I wonder how quickly (therefore how cheaply/expensively) the machine shop would find out if the head was toast. Hmmm. Damn. Wish we could look into a crystal ball to know what that f'ing head's condition is. By the way, the dealer parts dude said there are two heads - is that right? And are they both cylinder heads?

At some point, no matter what we do, we have to accept that we're taking some risks and just pick something and cross our fingers. Been making tons more calls this morning and doing tons more reading. Keep those opinions coming, cuz we still haven't ruled ANYTHING out yet except completely replacing her - she's part of the fam! Will post updates on what new info I've found (and more questions I'm sure!) later today. Thanks everyone!

P.S. random info - husband just talked to a buddy who listened to the noise video and he doesn't think it's a spun rod bearing - he said that would make a deeper sound and comes from bottom of engine. He thinks it's the plug electrode dancing around on top of the valve, and said to stick a magnet in there. But even if it's that, wouldn't we still need serious inspection of the stuff in there to be sure no major damage? Meaning, still need some kind of engine overhaul, because why not upgrade it if it's got 200,000 and you've gone as far as to pull apart to inspect for damage? Now I really wanna post the noise video for you guys to hear and see what you all think! Meant to do that long time ago.......will work on that ASAP.

 

yes the v6 has one head on top of each bank of 3 cylinders forming a v shape hence the name v6.

as you are learning about all what is involved you see now where to least risky and least expensive option is going with a complete engine replacement rather then get $$$ thousands deep only to find you need to spend thousands more.

you can find a mechanic you trust to inspect and test any engine you find before you buy it and trust his judgement but the best solution for you is get the engine I linked to earlier and then have your mechanic install it. it has already been tested and comes with a full warranty so there are no questions about it and you can sleep easy.

I have no reason to mislead you and would tell my own family to do the same and if I was in your position it would already be in the process of being shipped to me and I am perfectly capable and able to rebuild my own engines but it makes more sense to buy that one rather then spend a fortune on the unknown.

get a camera scope to look inside that cylinder with the noise, that way you don't have to take anything apart unless you find a reason to. there is one at home depot at a nice price

seen here: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-Tek4-Digital-Inspection-Scope-RP4206/202223756?N=5yc1vZc2gm

or get one like it that will fit through the plug hole size so you can see what is going on in there and if there is an object banging around in there but it cant be very hopeful there isn't damage going on if something is inside there banging around

 

http://youtu.be/wJqewnkzg8A

hopes the link works, thanks!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVQtguJvbsQ

This is someone else's noise that I found, he turned out to have scuffed pistons. Sounds similar to me, but what do you guys think?

 

http://youtu.be/OXzsFpstRY8

and here's the borescope that we did - but really don't know what we're looking at. sorry for the poor image quality, it's a harbor freight camera, what can i say? right about the 1 minute mark, you can see what appears to be a black hole, with grey ring around it, and shiny little (metal?) specks all around - anybody have a clue what we're seeing there?

 

well thats a crappy camera lol its supposed to have a light on it so you can see stuff.

what I can see sure looks like a hole in the piston there and that's full rebuild time but you need some back lighting to see for sure so do it again holding a bright flashlight behind the wand shining into the hole but it don't look good.

I was about to suggest on the sound video that it could be a valve spring tapping but based on what I think I see in this video, I say maybe its piston slap.

if that's a hole in the piston the get a replacement engine and move on because the other end of that is it smashed into the heads to punch a hole through the piston like that so I would bet the head on that side also has damage to it.

 

+1
hole in the piston

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdB91sq4Sgc&feature=youtu.be

So that 1st noise video I just posted was when we started it last Monday evening (day after this all started). This video was taken Wednesday night, and we started it twice, and at one point the neighbor cranked it manually to see what the noise did when the engine was revved. The noise didn't change at that point, but then we turned it off and started it again, and that time the noise changed to more of a rattle. Sincere apologies for my background screaming (had drained and refilled oil before starting it, so noise wasn't present initially upon starting it, so I was screaming "WTF WTF WTF the noise is gone!" then sincere apologies for my cursing that followed the noise coming back.

 

Crap Keakar! Noooooooooooooooooooooooo. This sucks. But thanks for looking and giving input.

Double crap teamhypoxia! That sure does look like what we saw. Nooooooooooo. Damnit.

Stick w/me guys, one more video (the one above), and you get to hear me screaming and cursing in it! Apologies if it's offensive to anyone.....

So, hole in piston head = do not rebuild this one, even if we replaced the entire short block w/brand new factory one? Too risky that our top end stuff is totally screwed, right? So back to either used or reman'd, but ours is essentially garbage, right? Could that damn center plug electrode have created that hole, then went all the way through and is now rattling around inside other parts of our engine? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr freaking spark plug!!!!!!NGK plug

 

I did come across this sorta local to you deal you could check out: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toyota-5VZ-...Parts_Accessories&hash=item19f7782a21&vxp=mtr

sounds like it might be worth the drive down to pick it up

 

Hahaaha! let it rip! Welcome to the club,,lets hear ye war yell!

Uglyness in there,,and exactly what I was staring at not to many years ago. Staring at the top of the connecting rod beam just below the dark hole,,when it shouldn't have been visible.

I holed a piston in my built Honda CB650 at 135. Deadlocked the back tire. Had the super duty clutch in there and it didn't want to let go,,finally got it to roll again at about 80. Nickle sized hole in the piston from a carb jet plugging and going lean,,eating the plug,then sending the shrapnel bits thruout.

Metals thruout the motor sis,,and not the kind you like to see in the window. I am sorry.

Bamatoy has found you a bottom end reman, and those are good guys. Have heard the name in circles here and there. The question is the head and it's condition. If it is salvageable,,then it's not going to be to awfully bad on the checking.

 

if you are talking about that 3.0L engine I saw talked about earlier in the thread, those 3.0L engines are for the front wheel drive and wont work on rear wheel trucks but im sure he can find the 3.4 that does fit for about the same price.

lovemytacolots one thing to remember in all this, as if you needed more to worry about, is with seeing a hole in your piston, you need to fix the reason it has a hole in it so there is another problem that caused all this and as Mod alluded to it could be a plugged injector or some other issue that caused the chain reaction that brought you to where you are today and one more reason why I keep saying, and fully believe, a replacement engine is the best trouble free solution so you can sleep at night.

 

Also, what does a hole in the piston mean in terms of spun rod bearing? At least there'd be some satisfaction in the dealer tech being wrong in his diagnosis........ Tell me a hole in the piston doesn't automatically mean a spun rod bearing is also present and the noise he heard was from the piston hole problem. Please. Gimme something guys. Is that really evil? Irrelevant, yes. But evil? Wait, I don't really care if it is, nevermind.......

 

That royally sucks Jen. Time to pull the engine and replace it.