A 1993 Toyota extra cab 4 x 4 DLX, 3.0 V6, five speed, with only 113,000 miles on the clock. This truck sat around for 10 years with a blown engine. It passed through the hands of at least one other owner who hoped that it would be an easy fix. After some half-hearted attempts to get it running, he gave up and sold it to me. I looked at it I noticed that just behind the air conditioning compressor there was a gaping hole in the cylinder block where a connecting rod had exited the engine.

A couple of weeks ago I pulled the engine out of the truck and a week ago I began to tear it down. I found not one broken rod, but three! I don't know what caused all this mayhem, but it is what it is. My hope for this engine is that I can salvage the low mileage cylinder heads off of it to go on to my ailing 1989 4runner.

I have another engine, out of a 1994 4runner, with 170,000 miles and a bad head gasket. Next week, I will begin to tear that down with the hope that some new bearings, a cylinder hone job, new rings and new heads will get me a reliable engine to give this truck a long new life.

As far as the body and frame go there is rust. You have to expect that kind of thing from a truck that has spent its entire life here in the heart of the Rust Belt. Right now I think I can get it under control without too much trouble and get it looking good again.

Folks who live elsewhere may wonder why I bother.

Several reasons:
This is what we have to work with around here.
I like these trucks.
I think they're going up in value.
It keeps me wrenching on something I like.
I'm building my skills.
I'm building up my toolset.
I'm paying my dues so that when I finally get my hands on vintage Porsche 911 I will be worthy :-)

So this thread is going to be about the mechanical repairs and upgrades to the drive line, And about dealing with the rust on the frame and on the body.

Let the fun begin.SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

 

Amazing pull!

I had been putting off this job for quite a while. It just seemed like a whole lot of work and I pictured all kind things going wrong. I am like that. When it came down to it, It was quick and painless. I was skeptical about pulling out Engine, Transmission and transfer case as one unit. I had visions of having trouble getting it out over the radiator core support, but just as others on this forum had told me, I attached a come-along from the center of the hoist to the tale of the transfer case and was able to control the angle of the combination perfectly. I can say with confidence that I did not put a scratch on that vehicle during this process.

I did let the air out of the front tires to gain precious inches of clearance. Probably could've done it otherwise.

 

On the left is the grenaded '93 3VZE that I pulled out of the truck. On the right, the '94 salvage yard engine. At this point the engine on the left is disassembled down to the short block. The heads are just resting on the the block with the valve covers just acting as protective covers. Nothing much to save in the block with three rods broken and a hole in the block.





I think that I will soon have enough pictures of the 3VZE in various states of disassembly that I can put together a tutorial for people who need to get up to speed fast for repairs or a rebuild.





This engine is typical of equipment around here. It has corrosion on everything. This engine sat for ten years, six or seven years of that with the oil pan off. So moisture got in and I am seeing a little bit of corrosion on stuff like the valve stems where they are exposed in the intake ports, etc.

 

Here is a piece of really good news! It looks like these heads were undamaged by the destructive forces that wrecked the lower half of the engine. These heads only have 113,000 miles on them. If they are good they will go on my 89 4runner. The 4runner had a head gasket job just before I bought it. The work was done as a project at the local high school by students in the vo-tech automotive class. I think the gasket has held up okay for about 20,000 miles, But during that time the compression on two cylinders has dropped to almost nothing. I ran a cylinder leak down test a while back and determined that the exhaust valves in the two affected cylinders were not sealing. So I needs me some 3VZE cylinder heads for that project. And If I can get some sweet, low mileage heads with good specs at no additional cost I will be very happy. But first I needed to locate a valve spring compressor tool that would work with this application.

Somewhere along the way, I picked up one of those cheap valve spring compressors that might work with Chevy or a Ford, but it definitely is the wrong tool for this job. I like to get good tools if I can afford them. I noticed an OTC branded compressor that looked pretty stout on Amazon.com for about $55.00. I was just about to place an order, but got to thinking that I didn't want to wait for a week for the tool to arrive. So I started looking around to see if I had some materials to make a tool.

This is what I came up with:












Using an 8 inch C clamp, a 1-1/8" holesaw and a 1-1/2" od washer, in about 30 minutes I made something that worked perfectly. The lesson learned once more is that having some basic metalworking tools pays off again and again. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have been confronted with a situation where I needed a custom-made tool and having a cheap little welder and a grinder with a cut off wheel saved my butt.




I downsized a couple years ago from a Lincoln 255 amp MIG welder to this little 115-volt flux core wire welder after health problems took away my ability to lay down a decent bead. Now I just tack stuff together and occasionally weld something where appearance or structural integrity are not important. For $129 this thing is unbeatable for many kinds of fabricating tasks. I can tack together just about anything up to quarter inch steel and then I turn the project over to someone else to finish up the welding. If you can't afford a more powerful welder or you don't have access to 220 V, Do yourself a favor and get something like this. It really will open up your range of possibilities.

 

I like that valve spring compressor! Nice truck too.

 

Thanks for the kind words. The truck looks better than it really is. That is something that I will go into more depth later in this thread. First, this is going to be about a whole lotta driveline stuff. I'm going to do a rebuild on the rear axle with new brake backing plates and my first ever ring and pinon swap. I'm going to be swapping out the front axle for another IFS unit with a more desirable gear ratio. The body and frame might need their own thread! I already have some rust free torsion bars and upper control arms that are going to get installed, I also just picked up a gas tank and a gas tank skid plate, that look new, from a rolled 1993 xtra cab that only had 47,000 miles on it and was never in the Rust Belt. Going to need both driveshafts too, and much, much more.

 

This is the Valve Spring compressor that I was looking at on Amazon. OTC-4572. If anyone has ever used this one or any others that they found useful feel free to share your experience in this thread.

 

Nice job on the valve spring compressor.

Here's the one I use:


You need a drill press for the motive power:


This tool is also used to hold injectors to press-in the filter screen on the input side of the injector.

 

Scope103

Using a drill press like that is clever. I am trying to get more into machining. This shows me that I have to learn to think more like a machinist. I have a fine, big drillpress but I hadn't thought of using it like you did. How would you go about holding the valve so that it doesn't drop-down while you are trying to assemble the spring, the retainer, and the keepers? Also, that tool is pretty well made. The notch on the side looks like it was made with a milling machine.

 

The notch on the side was made with a table-mounted router. I don't have a mill. Yet. (But don't over think things. It's only there so you can get your finger in to re-install the keepers.)

When removing the keepers, use a magnetic retriever. It looks like tweezers would work, but they don't.

The valves aren't perpendicular to the faces of the head, so you have put a few pieces of wood under the far side of the head to tip it up, so the valves are vertical.

You also need to put something right under the valve head to keep it from descending too far when you compress the spring (taking it out or putting it in). I have a handful of replaced valve shims which are the perfect size, but you don't need anything that precise. You also don't need to hold the valve up tight; just within a few mm so the valve stops moving soon after you start compressing the spring.

 

The mating surface appears to be flat!

Checking with my machinist's straight edge and a feeler gauge, the head sealing surface appears to be pretty flat. At least as far as I can tell with the feeler gauges that I have. My thinnest gauge is .005". The factory service manual (FSM) calls for a maximum warpage of .0039", So I need to look around for a better set of feeler gauges, but all indications are that these heads are in spec.

 

Next up, time to check the valve stems and valve guides. for this I used some small hole bore gauges that I have had for a while. I'm not sure just how accurate these things are, but I found good consistency in the measurements, which leads me to believe that they are okay.









Here you see the bore gauge inserted in the valve guide,





And here taking the measurement as translated by the gauge. Again, I don't have a lot of experience with these bore gauges, but the consistency of the resulting measurements gives me confidence that the tool is doing what it is supposed to do. And also, they were corresponding perfectly with the specifications provided by the FSM. If the readings can be relied upon, these guides are still within the "as new" factory numbers.





And finally, checking the length of the valves with a 12 inch Starrett caliper. Also checking out well within factory tolerances for new valves.

 

My next job was to measure the clearances between the camshafts and the journals that they ride it in. According to the factory service manual (FSM) if the clearance of even one journal exceeds the specified maximum the head is scrap.

The tools I have for this job are a micrometer with a 1” - 2” range and a telescoping “tee” gauge. The gauge is basically a slim handle with some spring-loaded, expanding arms with contact points, mounted perpendicular to the handle, on the end. To use it, you compress the contact points and slip them into the cam bearing bore where they expand to conform to the maximum inside diameter. You move the gage around until you determine that you have positioned it to measure the maximum dimension. Then you twist the end of the handle grip to lock the telescoping arms at that dimension. Then you carefully remove the gauge from the bore, taking care not to disturb the measuring arms, and lay it on your bench where you can get an actual measurement with your measuring device, which in this case is a micrometer.











This is actually a pretty fussy process and I have never had very good luck getting accurate measurements this way. Today was no different. I measured each of the five bores in the right cylinder head at least four times, The measurements were always a little different, but fairly consistent until I got to the bores for journals #4 and #5. There, things started to get a little out of hand. On those two journals, I got some measurements that were within the factory specification and a few that were so far out that the head would be junk if they were correct.

The average of the measurements looked something like this:

#1 -- .0020”
#2 -- .0021
#3 -- .0029
#4 -- .0034
#5 -- .0035

The FSM indicates that standard clearance between cam and journal should be between .025 mm - .066 mm ( .0010” - .0026”), with a maximum of 0.10 mm (.0039”). My measurements would have put all of the journals on this head within the allowable range, but #4 and #5 would leave me worrying as they are right at the upper limit. Only #1 and #2 would be in the standard range, which is as good as new.

I decided to go to the old fallback method, Plastigage. Plastigage is an inexpensive measuring product that you can buy at almost any auto parts store for about $3. It consists of a thin plastic filament, a little bit thicker than the diameter of a human hair and about 10 inches long, which is sold in a paper envelope type of packaging.


To use Plasticgage you cut little sections of it, each as long as the width of the journal/bore you want to measure. Then you place the cut pieces on top of the journals and install the caps, torquing them to specifications. Once you have all the caps torqued you back them off and carefully remove them so you can inspect the segment of Plastigage, which is now been crushed flat to the indicating width. You want to compare those crushed bits to the scale that is printed on the package, which indicates the clearance in numeric values.








I followed these steps and examined the results, which indicated that all of the clearances were consistent from one to the next and indicating that the clearance on all the journals was around .0025”. That is within the factory specs for a new cam and cylinder head. With that, I am happy to call this measuring operation finished with excellent results. Until tomorrow, that is. When I will have to repeat this process with the left head. After that, I will check both cams to make sure that they're straight, check each cam for its thrust dimension (how much it can be moved forward and backward in the cylinder head bores) and check the oil clearance dimension between the lifters and their bores.

Plastigage is not a professional method for precision measuring automotive engine components. The kind of micrometer I used is fine for measuring the cam journal, but the telescoping gauges are also not a first class tool. A precision bore gauge would be much better for measuring the camshaft bores. Plastgage can only tell you the overall clearance. If the clearance is excessive when measured this way, it would be important to be able to measure both the cam and the bore to find out which one is, or how much both are, contributing to the bad measurement. The bore gage pictured below sells for $200 on Amazon. It's a Starrett brand, which used to mean that it was manufactured in the U.S. and that it was a superior product. Would be interesting to learn where this one was made. A similar gauge from the Japanese company, Mitutoyo, sells for $325.

 

A hole in the block. With only 113k miles, this engine is giving up some good heads, but not much I can do with this block. In all, three rods are broken and the crankshaft is trashed. This block is now headed to the scrap heap, That will free me up to do some of the many other Toyota tasks I have on my to-do list. And boy, do I have a long list.

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So I still have some work left to do breaking down the old engine. The block and three of the rods are junk. Also, I noticed that some chunks are missing from the main bearing cap assembly. However, the caps seem to be holding the crank in place. It will be interesting to see what kind of condition the crank is in. The big ends of the rods are intact, even the ones that have broken beams. It will be amazing if the crank is not bent or featuring hammered journals. And there are a few things that I want to save, like the knock sensor, the oil pressure sender, and the motor mounts. In any case I need to strip the block down to make it ready for the metal recycler.



The bolt in the nose of the crankshaft pulley was stubborn. In fact, it was too much for my impact gun. So I got out my 3/4" drive breaker bar and a 2-foot extension. Needless to say, the bolt was no match for the heavy tools. I also used a Crankshaft holder that I made from an extra pulley. I welded a short section of flat steel to the face of the pulley and drilled it so I can bolt a longer extension to it.










Here is a picture of two 19 mm sockets. The one on the left is 3/4 inch drive and the one on the right is a 1/2 inch drive. The 1/2 inch socket probably would have done the job, but it just feels so good to use the other one.



.

 

I finally got to do a little more work on the engine today. I planned to tear it down for scrap metal and to get my work area cleaned up a little bit. The destruction was pretty amazing. Three broken rods and at least one slightly bent and stretched, a hole blown in the side of the block and some holes in the oil pan. And the main bearing cap assembly was broken.

When I took apart the first rod cap and saw the bearing I was pretty surprised. It was an amazing shape. Lots of material, even wear and no scoring from debris. So I began to take the other rods apart carefully. All the bearings looked good. So when I got the main caps off I decided to test the crankshaft with a dial indicator to see if it was straight. And it was well within factory spec!

Tomorrow I will check the rod journals to see if they are round and within spec. This engine only has 113,000 miles on it. When I opened it up, I also noticed that it still had red antifreeze in it. Now I'm thinking the oil was changed regularly as well. The engine that I'm planning to rebuild for my truck is a 1994 out of a 4runner with 178,000 miles on it. It might turn out that the crankshaft that I tested today will be the better of the two. That would mean that I got not only two good cylinder heads, I got a nice low mileage crankshaft, from an engine that I expected to be little more than scrap metal.

 

I'm enjoying your precision measurements of all the engine internals. Keep em coming.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. I have been trying to put together a set of precision measuring tools over a number of years. It is a work in progress. It is really quite satisfying to have the right tools when you're rebuilding an engine. I hope to do my first differential gear install in the next few months and later this winter tackle an R series transmission rebuild. That should give me some good excuses to buy more precision tools. I am lucky to have a neighbor who is a retired Honda dealership mechanic. He was a transmission specialist, he says he will help me learn transmissions.

If you like precision measuring, you should love Zuk's awesome gear installs website. I wish I could find a transmission rebuilding website with that level of specificity and detail.

 

While I have been working on the engine, I have also been working at the back of the truck. There's a lot of work to be done there. I want to get the axle out so that I can replace the brake backing plates. The fuel tank needs to go. All the brake and fuel lines need to be replaced. Leaf springs need sandblasted, painted and new friction pads. And of course, the frame itself needs to be cleaned up and painted.














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Giving the rear axle some attention. I never knew what axle ratio this truck really had because the code that is printed on the VIN plate indicates that it is something like 3.29 to 1. That's nutty of course. So with the differential out of the axle housing, I was finally able to get a tooth count, which revealed a 4.30 ratio. I cleaned the housing with degreaser and my pressure washer and then went over it with a wire wheel on my grinder. After all that, I am leaning towards scrapping this housing and differential. They are just too rusty. The differential/third member has got giant pits and peeling flakes of rust and the axle housing back cover has become too thin. I have another complete axle assembly from a 1989 22RE 4runner that I parted out. It only has light surface rust. I also have another V6 third member that I sourced from Virginia that is very clean and rust free. It has 4.10 gears, so it looks like I'm going to get to do my ever first gear install. I am thinking of running 255-75 R17 tires, Which are almost 33 inches tall, so 4.88 gears look like a good choice. For the front axle, I have a line on a couple of junkyard units with factory 4.88s installed that I would just swap out.











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