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

this is true, your rod bearings are most likely "ok" (well at least they aren't the problem) even though im sure the metal in the oil took its toll on all the bearings.

the dealer tech was 100% wrong and just making a guess about it and IMHO a poorly justified guess that leaves me thinking he needs more training

see if someone at this site is anywhere near you and maybe they can go with you to buy a used motor from a wrecked truck and make sure its a good motor you can trust or maybe you can find a local mechanic you can trust that can go with you and check it, then pay your mechanic to install it for you..

the other option if you just cant stand all these decisions and not knowing is to simply go buy another truck just like yours (maybe even better) and sell your broken one to someone else and let them do all the decision making for it.

 

Keakar, possible plugged injector? Husband used fuel injection cleaner for a while, could that have done something funny to the plug's explosion, then led to all of this happening? Don't worry, I won't be mad at him even if that's it......he's saved us thousands on routine repairs/maintenance on Taco and Civic over the years. But if that could be it, I'd love to spread the word to other Taco fans to stay away from fuel injection cleaner!!!!!!! Hard to believe it could have been a faulty plug, since NGK is the recc' brand for this engine. Hmmmm. Also, if any chance fuel injector cleaner could lead to this, need to pull Civic plugs ASAP, and get code reader too, to be sure it holds up at least until Taco is fixed! Civic also threw check engine light recently, but we read that cleaner messes w/the oxygen sensor (I think?) so chalked it up to that. Could that stuff be destroying our cars????????????

 

YES!!!!!!!! DEALER WAS WRONG!!!! BEST THING I'VE HEARD SINCE THIS ALL STARTED!!!!!!!!! WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those worthless &!@&*#!@&# won't even call me back. I've called twice in the past week and left messages asking VERY NICELY if the tech that listened to Taco could please please please call me back so I could give him the info about the bad plug, the video we did, ask if they did a code reader, etc.........both times have been told tech would call me back. And nothing. Sure, we only paid $60 for diagnosis, but still, come the heck on, when you're telling someone their engine is shot, ya can't even give 'em 5 minutes to discuss further??????? JERKS. Can't believe a FREE forum is how we came to the actual diagnosis. Thank you so much you guys - the diagnosis blows, but at least now we know what the hell is going on!!!!!!

 

if you don't get enough gas then it runs lean and running lean means it runs hotter and it can get lean enough to run hot enough to literally melt the aluminum piston and literally "burn" a hole in it.

no, cleaners and such dont do this but a clogged injector is what took out Mod's engine and I think it may be what took yours out too but it would need to be checked

your guy did his best but im guessing the injector must have been clogged beyond the point of cleaners helping it.

check craigs list to see if there are any low mileage wrecked trucks in your area

 

Just a lazy application of the task, and tool, while changing plugs,,can lead to this. Instant $3k+ spent,,in just a couple revolutions of the motor.

That bad piston might not be the one knocking,,believe it or not.

Only way Jen , is to tear it down and diagnose.

 

So, hole in piston head, plus possibly other damage that we can't see right now = 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 we should do either used or reman'd, but from what we know for sure at this point, it's silly to tear ours apart in hopes of rebuilding it, right? Votes?

Keakar - "your guy did his best but im guessing the injector must have been clogged beyond the point of cleaners helping it" - thank you for saying that, he's gonna be happy to hear that - naturally we've been debating whether than cleaner could have caused/contributed to this, so he'll be very glad to hear this. Thanks man!

Ha, Toyota just called me back. Not the tech of course, because "they've been swamped and he had to leave and blah blah blah." Service advisor again, who I've talked to 100 times already and has told me all of nothing helpful or informative. Yippee!!!!! Really really wanted to share the latest news on the diagnosis with her, but she is now promising the tech will call me himself at 6am, so I think I'll wait to enjoy the pleasure of passing this news along directly to him. Yes, I admit, I'm in a pretty sad state of mind right now that this is giving me so much joy........

 

well if you were my sister I would tell you that there is no way to know for sure without tearing it apart but there is a 95% chance that it wont be worth fixing money wise. sure you can fix anything with enough money but im looking at unless everything was 100% positive good news once you got in there (very low odds on that being the case) then you would still be better served buying another engine. add to that what I said about you still need to diagnose the cause that ruined use which is most likely a bad injector but you still need to figure it out where a good used engine from wrecked car will have everything on it that already works so there is nothing more to do but drop it in, hook it up and enjoy.

add to that you can recover some of your money spent by selling your engine for a parts engine and probably get about $400 for it as a complete unit or break it apart in separate pieces and maybe get $750 by the time your done.

 

What do you guys think about going this route? This guy puts reman's in, says the whole thing is composed of machined parts and new OEM parts. Said engine + labor would be $4450. Would you trust this more than a used engine? He said it'd be $185 extra to clean our fuel injectors. Will talk to husband tonight about wrecked car engine - clearly a lot of $$$ to be saved going that route, especially if husband thought he could handle the swap, but not sure if he'd be comfortable. Still seems like we could save even if we paid someone to put in a used engine, if we found the right mechanic to do it......good grief, I'm starting to feel like this is just my new reality guys. Ready to make a decision, hope we'll be able to soon!!!! So many factors, blah, this sucks. Thanks for hanging in there with us and helping us figure out what to do everyone!

 

I've been watching this thread since it started. I love the research that you have been doing. With that said, I wish I could interest my wife in how our engines work. But I digress.

I have my own shop with lift and hoists. I just got done removing the same motor out of the same truck. It is definately not a DIYer job. Between finding the time and actually doing the job, it took me 2 weeks to do the job properly. My opinion would be to list the aid of a pro or semi pro to do an engine swap. They have the tools and the location to do the job. I've done engine switches off jack stands and dirt floors and it will make you wish you would have just hauled the thing to the scrappers.

Your vehicle was the exeption, not the rule. I'm still wondering what caused this piston to burn down. You should have had a check engine light. When you get a lean condition, the computer will note it as well as miss fires. Is there any chance the previous owner removed the bulb from the back side of the instrument cluster?

The dealer did not win themselves any points on their lacsadaisy diagnostics. Don't paint all dealers as being thieves. I have had great relations with them, yoiu just had a bad initial deal and frankly I'm suprised it was only $60 for the diagnostic. Most are way more than that.

Consider heavily having someone do the swap. These 3.4 motors are in the top ten motors catagories for reliability. Any thing less than 200,000 miles should not be feared. Just make sure the timeing belt, idlers, water pump is changed befor the swap.

Another sugestion would be to talk to some of the independant shops in your areas. they can do the swap or they will know someone that does engine swaps on the side.

Your first battle will be to find a motor(sorry you can't have my 3.4,1998 spare).

I just read the last part of your post. If you plan on driving this truck for another 5 or more years (and you should), there is nothing wrong with 4500 for the one listed above. If you bought a new truck, you would have way more money than that in the first year of payments.

I do hope that when you get the old motor out, that you do an autopsy.

 

$4450 for rebuilt motor installed is a little high, depending on what needs to be done...I might be a little off since I restore and collect old dodge trucks...

 

Thanks for the input guys. So currently there's a theory that a clogged fuel injector could have caused this. Which makes sense to me, cuz I remember husband started using fuel injector cleaner (must have had some reason to suspect we needed it, very vaguely remember him saying he thought they might be/could be clogged a year or more ago), then we got check engine light ~6 months ago, which went away when we tightened gas cap, so chalked it up to that. But we thought, hmm, still, it's scary when that light comes on, and it's happened quite a few times over past 10 years (always went away w/tightened cap), but maybe fuel injector cleaner has something to do w/it and is doing more harm than good, and stopped using it. Then we got the light again, ~3 months ago. He was driving at that time, so I don't remember if the gas cap was the resolution then, and I don't think he remembers either, but something made it go away. But you guys w/the clogged fuel injector theory, are you thinking it was clogged, which led to funky heating/cooling scenario, which led to spark plug exploding, which led to hole in piston? Wondering if perhaps the cleaner was doing some good, then when we suddenly stopping using it, it made them even more clogged than they might have been if we'd never used it, then all this bad stuff happened as a result? How many fuel injectors are there, and where are they in relation to the plug electrodes? Why would it only interact strangely w/that one plug and not all the plugs? Yeah, I'm w/ya Koditten, sure as hell hope that whatever we wind up doing, we get to find out WTF actually happened!!!!!! And thanks for the compliment about the research, but honestly, I am normally more like how you described your wife when it comes to car stuff - "Eric, when are you going to be done working on the car/truck, I wanna go hiking/eat dinner/watch a movie?!?!" Or when he tries to explain what's wrong w/it, my usual reaction is, "blah blah blah, how long will it take/how much will it cost?" But this time, being faced with a very scary decision of whether we can even justify keeping her, well, that got my attention in a big way, in case you couldn't tell!

 

Auto parts stores will usually read a code for free.
There are also cheap alternatives now.
If you ever throw a code, you should check it so you know for sure what it is.

 

everyone here has your best interest at heart even if we differ in our opinions on the best way to go, often these opinions are based on income levels and just how much extra money we have in our budgets.

a new engine or fresh rebuilt one is nice but as you found its out of many of our budgets to commit such a large expense

 

$4500 for a reman motor installed is highway robbery imo.. Damn near buy another truck for that... Id still opt for a $1,000 junk yard motor and pay a competant shop $600-800 to install it for you. I'd bet if you bought an oem gasket set($200) and a run of the mill timing belt/ wp kit ( $100) you could easily find a mom and pop shop to install those parts while the engine is out and on the stand + install your motor probably for the total $800.

 

I think our discussion of repair options is a bit premature. We do know the motor most likely has a bad piston, and piston replacement is a reasonable task provided the cylinder isn't damaged.

I think the motor needs to come out and be evaluated before we come up with lowest cost repair estimates.

My experience is that the machine work/rebuild of a long block is a whole lot cheaper than things line rack and pinion units, AC compressors, engine control computers only because there is good second sources for engine parts. I like the Federal Mogul "Sealed Power" brand and they come with a 100,000 warranty.

Howard

 

Yep, Sorry I was gone a bit here, but looks like everyone else already spotted the hole in the piston. Looks like preignition/lean condition, considering the looks of the hole, and the surrounding area. Most likely the electrode broke loose from the higher temp I would say.

I only referenced the 3.0 because that particular website only showed that engine. That 3.0 is actually the older V6 that was in the Toyota trucks and 4runners before the Tacoma. It was nicknamed "3.slow" because it had crap for power. It was however a engine designed for a rear wheel drive truck, not front wheel drive.

Remember that there is a difference between a spun bearing and a knocking bearing. A spun bearing has come loose completely from it's retaining system and is just spinning around with the crankshaft. However as the other videos you have shown indicate, you probably do NOT have a rod knock as was previously thought.

Lots of possible situations and options for you, OP. Unfortunately as is mentioned, without pulling the heads and inspecting the cylinder walls, there is no way to know for sure the extent of the damage. You may have just a hole in the piston, and that is it. You also may have damaged head, burnt valves, etc. It's like calling a doctor on the phone and telling him you have a stomach ace, and to tell you what to do. There is no way to know for SURE what to do, until you go into the doc and let him give you an exam and some tests. So at this point you can either just say the heck with it, get a replacement, or take the heads off and take a look on the inside. Food for thought, if you are going to replace the engine, why not pull the heads ANYWAY, just so that you can see what it looked like.

 

Good morning guys! Some new developments - some good, some maybe bad:

1) A neighbor (former army mechanic!), came over last night when he saw us checking the plugs on our Civic (I've been paranoid about them lately for obvious reasons! all good, hurray!). He'd alluded to offering to help before, but has a wife, baby, full time job, and his own car prob's, so we never really "pinned him down" on it. But last night he showed serious interest in getting involved, and being a former army mechanic, we certainly took him up on it. We shared some beers, he watched borescope & sound videos, looked at the oil we'd drained, and did a compression test and said we definitely have compression. I don't totally understand what the compression test proves to us exactly, but know in general that's good, right? He put the compression tool in the well w/the bad piston, and there was compression, which seemed to surprise him - does that mean the hole doesn't go all the way through? He obviously agrees about hole in piston, and encouraged/convinced my husband to "pull the head"!!! That's the plan at the moment, Saturday morning, so my focus today is cleaning our shed to be as pristine as possible (to have as best of place as we can to put all the parts), and asking another neighbor about borrowing his boat canopy for our driveway. Mechanic neighbor assured my husband that he can definitely do this, and as long as we VERY carefully label everything (ziplocs and sharpei) and stay organized, take a billion photos, use the Haynes/Chilton manuals, and have him there to guide us, there's no question we can do it. So as long as husband still feels good about it by the time Saturday rolls around, we should FINALLY have some huge missing pieces of information!! Will make sure to post updates/photos once we see what the heck happened in there, for anyone who's still curious about the damn electrode mystery. At this point, the helper neighbor's optimistic hope is it was a faulty plug, and the electrode will be floating around in there, and we'll retrieve it (or it's pieces), replace the damaged piston, maybe machine/replace a few other parts, then start
again! Woo hoo! He's hoping we might be able to keep it under $500, holy cow!!!!! It was just too scary to attempt this on our own, but now with a knowledgeable helper/teacher, it's WAY less scary......

2) Hetkind, you mentioned costly repairs when it comes to rack & pinion units. Uh oh. When the Toyota tech did his diagnostic assessment, he wrote "P/S rack seeps RH boot" - could that translate to pinion system rack seeps from right hind boot? Unfortunately, can't clarify w/tech, cuz they won't give us the opportunity (but that's a whole other rant). Strange thing is, while reviewing all of our Taco records this week, I found a Les Schwab invoice from July 2013 for: 1) rack and pinion bushing kit; 2) install bushings; 3) thrust angle alignment. Should I be calling Schwab RE: boot seep note, or ????? Anyone know how serious of a problem it is to have a boot seep? Is that a reasonable DIY type repair? If rack & pinion is shot, is the entire engine debate now pointless, and we need a new truck? Please please please please please tell me that's not the case

3) Back to engine - the Toyota tech FINALLY called me back this morning, but barely gave me 5 minutes (hence not getting to rack/pinion stuff). I told him about the missing plug electrode & hole in that piston, and that our DIY compression test was good. He defensively informed me that whether spun rod bearing or hole in piston, we need a new engine. Said on a 195,000 mile engine that leaks oil, that's the end of the story. Which is true, but........anyway, dealer never told us anything specific about oil leaks, other than the person that checked us out saying "I don't understand the tech's notes about your oil and coolant, but I think he means you have a blown head gasket." So cleared some of that up: tech didn't remember writing anything about our head gasket (husband thinks tech was simply writing that oil and coolant levels were fine, which they both were/are), but tech did say we have valve cover gasket leaking oil on top of head, and the front timing cover area appeared to be leaking oil, so we'd have to check the seals. Reason I'm even explaining all this is cuz now, if that neighbor is truly committed to helping us, it's possible that we might try the DIY route all the way through, replacing/machining only the necessary parts to save $$$. So if we're not losing oil, the oil leaks the tech mentioned can't be that severe, right? Or best to replace those seals/gaskets anyway? Tech also said based on missing electrode and hole in that piston, he suspects we have damage to the cylinder head on the side where that plug was (which we'll hopefully know Saturday). If one head is damaged, should you replace both for things to fit properly? Also, would the only way to 100% verify condition of heads and short block be to take them to a machine shop, or is there some sort of test you can do at home? Also asked tech if they did a code reader - he couldn't remember, said he didn't have our paperwork, and that it was irrelevant anyway, cuz we need a new engine regardless. Hmmm. Can't remember who, but someone on this thread mentioned verifying that we don't have some kind of wiring/sensor issue w/our check engine light - which is an excellent point, because many of you have said it's bizarre that light didn't come on with that electrode missing/hole in piston. So, hmmm, seems like perhaps whether tech did a code reader or not is at least semi relevant, plus I'd love to know it's results if they did! End rant. Speaking of code readers, opinions on a decent, yet not crazy expensive code reader we could buy? Can we get one that would work on both Taco and a '93 Civic EX? After this experience, it's definitely worth spending the money on!

4) One other thing - if we try DIY route w/neighbor, is there some way to check our fuel injectors for clogs? Keakar and Mod, you guys suspected that could have started this whole thing, which makes sense. Where are the injectors, and how do you unclog them?

Wow. I am not great at being brief, am I? Hope you're all having a good day, thanks for the support everybody!

 

I think the broken spark plug electrode caused your hole in the piston..
If it was lack of fuel you would have gotten a p0171 or p0174 code stating you had a lean condition and an obvious misfire on that cylinder.
Its not too often that I've ever seen injector totally stop working altogether...
I've seen them randomly misfire and sometimes you can tap on the specific injector then it will work again.
I have seen them stick completely open or cause intermittent problems when there on there way out more than anything else.
If you have a volt meter you can test all the injectors pretty easily.
Set the meter to the ohm setting, touch a probe to each prong in the injector body and read the resistance.. It should be somewhere around 12-15 ohms, I can't recall exactly but they all should read really close to the same with very little difference in the readings. If you get one that is way off from the rest that is going to be your bad injector.
Also take a look at the injector harnesses- a broken/shorted wire will cause an injector to not work. To test the harnesses a noid light set is ideal but it can also be done with a volt meter.

 

A few thoughts. If you have compression on the bad cylinder you don't have a hole clear through. If he's using a HF compression tester 99% sure the test results are wrong. That particular tool is really prone to being useless. It's more like having a broken clock, you might still get lucky.

If you have to replace a piston you're stripping to more or less a bare block. You can't replace a piston without removing the bottom end, crank etc. If you're going that far, good time to check the crank, replace bearings, if you have any real miles on the truck might as well look at a full rebuild. It's not that much more time and money and you might as well start off fresh for the amount of labor you're looking at. You DON'T want to do this twice if you can avoid it. I wouldn't do a lot of work on a 200k engine unless I was doing A LOT of work.

If you have oil/coolant mix, you have either a bad head gasket or a cracked head (hopefully). There's no way to mix the 2. Once you pull the head to inspect you'll be replacing gaskets regardless, those aren't reusable. Same with the bottom end.

If you have a stuck injector that blew a hole in a piston, replace it, don't worry about cleaning it. They're attached to the fuel rail, pretty easy to find.

You can download torque on android and get a bluetooth obd reader for about $5, do everything you ever want and then some. If for some reason your computer isn't kicking an error code, you have electrical issues. But I'd start by making sure the bulb was good.

 

ok, if you have a knowlegable mechanic to guide you through it then that does change my view on "should" you attempt to fix it yourself. rebuilding an engine is NOT a DIY job with a Haynes manual and it requires a level of experience on things to know what you are looking at and when to say "stop, its not worth it anymore" that cant be read in books.

if this guy has rebuilt engines before or has been with others who did, then its worth doing it with his guidance and help, if not, then just let him guide you through the tear down of the engine so see where you are and what it looks like then report back for advice on best way to proceed. at the very least this guy is perfect to help you pull and replace the engine from the truck so now you just need to figure out if the engine is worth rebuilding.

if that hole is indeed not yet completely through the piston it "could" still have compression or the guy messed up the test somehow but either way that piston must go which means a full complete teardown of the whole engine, no two ways about it. you are not going to put one new piston in and put it back together.

when the crank and pistons come out you need to ream the top most edge of the cylinders to remove the wear lip formed at the top of the cylinders where the rings don't touch so its smooth and uniform cylinder, then the cylinders need to be honed which is a spinning brush with rough balls on the bristles that "sands" or roughens the cylinder walls so the new rings have something to wear against to form a perfect seal. the heads should be sent off to be cleaned and reconditioned so the valves are sealing properly and the valve stems have new oil seals installed so there are no oil leaks. the cylinders must be checked for roundness and wear to see if they need to be bored larger and have oversized pistons and rings installed and the crank shaft must have its journals checked the same way for the same things. make no mistake about it, the path you are going down with this motor is only a full recondition and rebuild, there is no fix whats wrong once you get that deep into it that a crank is removed. plus the freeze plugs need replacing which is often overlooked item.

FORGET the $500 idea, that's just wishful thinking, the gaskets alone will cost that much, but you might be able to do it in the $1,000-$1500 range when all is said and done and have a "like" new engine when you are done. look here: http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/sku/DNJ/Engine_Rebuild_Kit/DNJEK965M.html but before ordering a kit like this you need to determine the crank bearing and piston size you will need to use in case you need non standard OEM sizes which is quite common. if you do then will tell you which kit you need to get for those sizes.

while doing this take your injectors out and test them to see if they are working correctly, I think injectors cost around $100 each