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

I just kept reading every day with positive thoughts, hoping that this was the day that you found the answer. I felt for you, I developed hope and wishfulness, even when I thought you were just throwing parts at the problem. So I guess I care soooooooooo much because I invested hours reading and thinking about your problem. Just thought you might want another opinion, besides the five guys that are agreeing with you. At the beginning you sounded so nice, and you gave so much information, and you wanted everybodys opinion, now you are so focused on the blame, I thought you might want to refocus on the problem, get some more input from some other members.
You sure are defensive when somebody doesn't agree with you. I'm not the first to not agree with you.
Do you talk to all the other members that have made suggestions like this? NO, just the ones that don't agree with you.
Like I said, I've read every post since day one. I even suggested what I thought was the best solution to the original problem, from my experiences.

You pretty much have the number one nice guy mechanic Bama unable to diagnose, someone that has tons of expierience is unable to figure it out. He hasn't stated anywhere that this is a problem is a definite result of the internal workings of the motor.

Good luck. Unsubbed

 

I have since day one tried to put myself in their shoes. I tried suggesting what I thought was a reasonable course of action. Every day I hoped was the day the problem was figured out. All I was saying is to relax on the blame game, and focus on whats really wrong, a problem that has no relation to the rebuilding of the motor. I just thought it was time to voice my opinion, try to get things back onto the problem, obviously that didn't happen. Like I said before, this happens all the time, you fix one problem, only to discover another. This will be my last comment on the subject, hopefully changing the computer will fix it.

 

Obviously the internals on an engine will not cause a warm lazy start, we ALL get that.
The engine runs great. The issue lies somewhere during the transplant of all the existing components.... components that the engine shop applied to the truck.


Example: If I hired a carpenter to replace my front door, but save the lockset and install it on the new door. The door gets installed. It works, seals, opens and shut great, but now my lockset is sticky (never was before). Should I call the carpenter back and have him correct the new problem?

... That is about as close of an analogy I can give you regarding their problem.

 

I am up near Pensacola Jen. We do get some rain, but not really any worse than many of the other places I have lived.

I think perhaps you may be misunderstanding the full situation here. And please forgive me if I am wrong. The OP has gotten understandably upset a couple of times. I really can't blame her. Time after time she has had to deal with one disappointment after another. So she has lashed out. It happens, and we ALL are guilty of it at some point in time.

However my read on this is not that she plans to sue the rebuilder for the whole job. She wants to find out what her legal rights are once the final issue is resolved. In my shop if I tell you that you need the injectors cleaned and that will fix your problem,and then after I clean them, the problem is still there, well then I am not going to charge the customer a dime. Because I made a judgment call that was incorrect. Why should the customer pay for it? I used to vote in arbitrations where customers were disputing charges at mechanic shops for various reasons. Some were legitimate, (Shop said replacing the ignition coil would fix the problem, it didn't and customer didn't feel they should have to pay for it) and others were not legitimate. (Shop replaced fuel pump for engine failing to start and the customer felt the shop should replace the AC compressor that evidently went bad while it was at the shop for the fuel pump)

The end result here is that the installing shop appeared to make a lot of guesses as to the cause without knowing for SURE what the problem is. Now a GOOD shop, once it ran all of it's diagnostic power to bear out, and was not able to diagnose the issue, would then tell the customer it was beyond their capabilities and suggest having it towed to the dealer( or another shop with more diagnostic tools) to get it figured out. You do NOT run a legitimate shop by throwing parts at a problem. Now if the shop was fair, after the customer spent $5k on having the engine replaced, it would have flushed the injectors and ran a flow test for free, to eliminate the injectors as a fault, then ran a complete diagnostic on the electrical system JUST IN CASE they had actually done something wrong.

Now yes, the shop only rebuilt the engine itself, but a GOOD shop would do a better job of cleaning the engine while performing the work. When I rebuild an engine the intake manifold and all "hard parts" that are removed get steam cleaned and pressure washed before they go back onto the engine. That is just smart business sense. It appears that the shop just yanked out the block, had it rebuilt, and shoved it back in without cleaning everything. And in my professional opinion that is shitty workmanship right there.

So yes, technically they shouldn't be held responsible for every single sensor and part on the engine, but if the OP brought their truck to me and it didn't have a hard start issue when it came in, and did when it came out, my ass would be over every square inch of the engine and electrical system until I found the problem. More than once I have actually ran into something similar to this, and it has actually COST me money on the job once everything was said and done (One of my techs was careless when connecting things up and apparently shorted out an ECU, costing me my $900 in profit) but by me finding the problem and admitting that it was possible it was my mistake had that same customer bringing their vehicle back to me for all their maintenance, as well as other family cars, and referred their friends to me because I was fair, and honest. My shop was open in a SMALL town, and I spent ZERO money on advertizing. All of my advertizing was from word-of-mouth from my customers, and I was making close to $100k by my 2nd year, AND having paid off ALL of my debts. I was profitable by year 3. Why? Because I followed one rule that I learned from my mentor when I was learning the craft:
This car/truck does not belong to the customer. It belongs to your mom. NOW what do you do, and hows do you treat it?

 

I basically agree with everything you posted Bama. I have had my fair share of nightmare issues. I totally feel for all that Jens family has been through, thats probably why I read every post every day, always wanting a happy resolution. I just felt like there was a lot of blame lately, and even though I understand how she would want to place blame on someone, I think that it's wasted energy. I really can't see how the original shop created this problem, unless they fried the computer somehow, which is unrealistic since the truck starts and runs, even with the hard start. I have no doubt you are an extremely reputable mechanic, and I agree the original shop should have tried harder, but I don't think that they should have any monies held or any refunds given, the new mechanic did basically the same things with the same result. I was just trying to give another opinion, one that does not coincide with the opinion of Jen, and was chastised for it. I responded to her, trying to show my logic, and I'm treated like the grim reaper. Its ok, I still hope for a positive resolution for Jens Tacoma.
Also I was thinking the original problem was more common, as I've seen a couple tacos with fried pistons lately.
http://albuquerque.craigslist.org/cto/4870471041.html

 

have patience jen, there will be guys coming in late who just skimmed some of this thread so they only know a small part of the story and is basing his opinions on that. its easy to see someone come in where we are today and say "wait a minute its not fair blaming engine guy" because they are assuming he did everything right and don't know he put your engine together with an intake manifold still full of dirt and gunk and stuck your supposedly reconditioned injectors in with gunk filled crud all around them because he was too damn lazy to clean the outside of anything he took off and just put it all back together as dirty as it was when he took it apart.

add to that he likely missed the point that another injector shop said 100% for certain the injectors she paid to have tested and reconditioned were obviously never cleaned or checked "in his professional opinion" so johnny come lately types will show up without the full picture and tell you things that will infuriate you but just let it go. your friends here will fill them in for you and bring them up to speed on how far you have bent over backwards giving this guy EVERY benefit of doubt until "professionals" informed you time and again of his shoddy work.

here is a video for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMC8LgUPMSM

 

I want to say thanks to certain people, but I'm afraid I'll be accused of doing something wrong by others. So instead I'll just say, have a good night Taco World, I appreciate the help I've received on here!

See ya tomorrow guys.

 

Has vapor lock been mentioned?
Maybe try a new gas cap.

 

Let's back up just a minute. Just before the crank sensor got replaced due to physical damage, there was a diagnostic report that during hard starts there was NO fuel injection pulse. Has the return of the fuel injection pulse been checked?

I have seen this type of odd ball situation when a harness has been stressed and an internal wire partially broken and that is HARD to trouble shoot.

Personally, I think that some advanced diagnostics might come in real handy about now.

Howard

 

This sounds very possible to me hetkind.

It was actually the cam AND the crank sensor that were replaced. He found the cam sensor to be getting basically NO reading, and it had that giant dent in it. Then after replacing the cam sensor, our mechanic bought and swapped the crank sensor on his own dime out of frustration since he was leaving town - he said the reading he got on the old one was a little low (I think).

He redid the noid light test on the injectors after new sensors were on. He said this time, it looked like the light was super bright during the excessive cranking of the hard warm start, as if they were dumping too much fuel - which was the opposite of what he'd seen before replacing those sensors. Honestly, he seemed surprised/puzzled by it, as if maybe for him, it's rare to see that.

What I forgot to ask him is if he rechecked the cam sensor reading after installing it, and if so, how that compared to the reading on the old one.

He affectionately calls our truck his "problem child" of the year - says he gets like one of those a year and those are the only ones that take more than a day or two to button up. I can tell he still in his gut feels like this is a fuel issue, but he can't imagine how it could be after all he's gone over with the fuel system.

He reset our ECM on Monday right before he left town, and instructed us to drive it a few hundred miles to complete a full drive cycle, so that hopefully a code(s) will set while the computer relearns the sensors. I'm hoping this approach would tell us if there's a stressed wire in the harness, like you're thinking - do you think it would?

I've never seen a wiring harness, it's tough for me to visualize. Will google it. But from the stuff we've found, if a wiring harness is anything like I would think it is, it sure seems possible that the problem is exactly what you're thinking hetkind.

17 year old wires, and young guys that perhaps didn't have the experience, patience and attention to detail to handle with care as needed.

Sure seems possible.

 

Not just the wires, but lots and lots of old, brittle plastic housed connectors. You have seen wiring harnesses, all the time, those are those black snakes under the hood that are NOT hoses.

I find sometimes the best way to remove wiring harnesses and connectors is lots of WD-40 to clean off the filth, lubricate the latch mechanism and allow it to slide apart, and when it goes back together, a dab of dielectric grease.

But let your mechanic try the alternate ECM first.

Howard

 

I think our mechanic is in or around Sarasota. Looking at google maps, it appears you guys are pretty far apart. Ah well, he's (rightly so!) got other things on his mind right now anyway, probably would have been pretty inappropriate for me to even suggest that idea.

Thank you, well said. Not proud of those moments, as I've stated previously, and grateful that folks didn't ditch me as a result. IMHO, the ones that didn't are the ones that have been invested in seeing us through this thing from day one, have seen the misery we've gone through, and therefore understand how/why I did that. And while I'm fairly new to this forum stuff, it sure seems to me like the stuff described in this thread (all the way back from the very beginning through the present) regarding our truck is an unusual situation. So naturally something with this many bumps in the road, continuing on for this long is going to create a more close knit vibe on the thread - and I don't see why that's a bad thing! And those folks that have hung in there with us? Well, IMHO those folks are some of the sharpest tools in the shed, so yeah, I guess I have kind of gotten comfortable with their input! But I think everyone following the thread, certainly myself included, always has and always will gladly welcome input from anyone and everyone that wants to give it, and this thread does see traffic from new people fairly often (I should know, I'm on it damn near all day, every day!). And when those folks pop up and say, sorry, not reading everything, but has xyz been looked at? I'm grateful for it! And of course it's understandable that they haven't read the whole damn thing, it's long, there's a lot of that off topic stuff to sift through. But as I've mentioned on here before, it's very easy for me to quickly bring them up to speed, then they offer thoughts as well. Works for me! It's unfortunate to me that some feel I've gone from doing a good job updating the thread to doing a poor job. Often I'm stuck in a waiting period with no new technical info/symptoms to describe - but that doesn't mean I magically stop thinking about this hellish situation. So that's where the off topic stuff, or recycling of ideas/theories come in. To my knowledge, that ain't breaking any forum rules.

EDIT: I didn't do a very clear job of how I've gone about posting this. Folks who read Nickel's recent comments can probably gather that most, if not all of the above paragraph is really more in response to some of his statements, rather than a response to what Bama's said here. Sorry, still fine tuning my posting skills!

Exactly. Don't even need to elaborate on that. This statement summarizes exactly what's on my mind. Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to really understand my point of view and summarizing it so eloquently Bama.

Once again, EXACTLY. Thank you for the well written summary of exactly what I'm thinking.

Good grief, you are reading my mind Bama! No additional comments here either!

Exactly. You've got some seriously bad ass writing skills and insight, man. And that bolded part? I LOVE this philosophy, what a fabulous work ethic to go by.

 

Gotcha, thanks hetkind! You're right, I have seen those, I know exactly what they look like now that you mention it. So then do all of those separate little black snakes of wires eventually join up somewhere and go into the ECM as one giant bunch?

 

Keakar, well said, all of it. You hit the nail right on the head with everything you said. And a song that fits the situation too, nice! I gotta say, there's a bit of a cheese factor to the song, but that just made me enjoy it that much more (husband too).

Thanks buddy!

 

glad it lifted your spirits, when someone dumps fertilizer on your head don't think of how bad it smells, just remember you now have free potting soil

 

There's one piece of info I keep forgetting to mention that is new, with the MAF. We just found this out a couple days ago, and until last night when my husband and I were discussing it, I hadn't thought much about it. Now wondering if it could actually be a significant clue....

Our mechanic noticed the MAF in the truck says "FAP" in marker on the side of it, which stands for Foster Auto Parts, a local store that sells used parts. It is not the same MAF that was on our Taco when it went in for the engine swap. 1000% sure, no question at all - WE ARE POSITIVE ABOUT THAT. We were never informed that a different one was being put on, or why.

Seems to me there's only 2 reasons a different one was put one -

1) The old one was damaged during the labor of the engine swap

2) The engine mechanics were trying a replacement part for something they thought could be a likely culprit to resolve the hard warm starts

Either way, it's more than a little annoying to me that this was never discussed with us, because again, here we go with guessing games on stuff that should have been made crystal clear to us. And why we were never given our old parts back, such as the MAF, FPR, failing injectors, etc? Not sure on that either, guess I should have asked for them. Except I wasn't told that some of the parts were replaced, so how could I know to ask. Hmmmm.

I don't know to what extent our current mechanic tested/checked the MAF, except:

1) He cleaned it with the special MAF cleaner stuff
2) He put it in the freezer to see if falsely reducing the IAT value would cause a typical hard warm start time to NOT occur, but hard warm start still did occur despite IAT being very low
3) He removed MAF completely and tried starting the truck during a typical hard warm start time; it didn't start at all

I'm guessing if there's an issue with the MAF, then by him resetting the computer and the computer relearning all the sensors, in theory/hopefully he'd get some kind of data/code to say, "HEY, MAF IS GOOFY" (or something along those lines ).

Just thought I'd share this FWIW. Thanks for reading all.

 

Ahh, words to live by. Love it!

 

Thanks File IFR. The part I bolded of what you said - I agree, except I'm even giving a bigger benefit of the doubt to those guys til we have every bit of info as to what the heck is causing the darn starting issue. I'm even willing to believe that perhaps something was wrong with the truck before that was somehow masked with the old engine but is now displaying symptoms with the new one, through no fault of theirs. Honestly, seems pretty darn unlikely to me, but since I'm not a mechanic and we still don't know what's causing the issue, I'm not absolutely ruling it out. As you and MOST everyone else on the thread see very clearly, I have no desire to take something I don't deserve or make false, unfair accusations. So I keep trying to educate myself about all of the technical side of this, partially in an effort to avoid jumping to incorrect conclusions about where the blame lies regarding this starting issue. It's just too bad that some folks aren't seeing that.

Bottom line, thanks for reading, thanks for taking the time to understand our perspective, and thanks for helping summarize it when it's being bashed on.

 

Is that a phonetic acronym?

 

Your thinking FAP. Get your mind out of the gutter.