1FZ Engine Teardown w/pics

[fj80toyman]

We finally got around to taking apart the 1FZ engine that came out of the '94 with 200+K miles on it. The engine was making the constant knock-knock noise, originally diagnosed as a bad piston pin, especially audible at idle and at acceleration was painfully clear.

Engine was swapped and the car is back on the road, the engine sat on the stand glaring at me. My son finally got the time and energy to disassemble it and what we found I thought was worth posting up if for nothing other than reference. Some intersting stuff.

At first, the head came off, it sure is a lot easier to pull the head when the engine's on a stand
Then we got to the business end of the noise.

Pic 1 is the culprit, no.1 piston on the left, marred and scratched, noise seems like piston slap. All of the other pistons looked like the one on the right.



Pic 2 is the bores, No.1 on the right. You can still see very nice cross-hatch in the bores, it hurts just to look at no.1. The scratches werent' too deep, I haven't had this 'mic'd to see how bad it went into the cylinder, I'm not sure if we're going to rebuild, but if we do it would probably need boring out w/new pistons. There's absolutely no ring-ridge in any of the holes.



Pic 3 is the main bearing caps, right to left is 2 through 6. Initially I thought they were in pretty good shape but on close inspection you can see a fair amount of contamination in the bearing material. The main journals are in very good shape, it's a good thing the bearing material is softer than the journals.



Pic 4 is one of the rod bearings. All of them look similar to this. Same as the mains, the rods have some noticeable contamination but overall not bad at all for 200+k miles on them.



Pic 5 and 6 are of the cam caps. Nothing special here, pretty good shape really. The head was completely gone through just before the lower end started making noise.





Pic 7 is the timing chain tensioner side. Again, not bad for 200+k miles but I would replace it for sure on a rebuild.



Pic 8 is where I am right now, deciding what to do with an engine I don't have a car for. Rebuild and keep around or what? No idea, anybody need a good rebuildable 1FZ from a '94?



Cheers, Dan.

[cruiserdan]

Depending on the condition of the #1 cylinder wall it may be possible to hone it and replace one piston.

The select-fit original assembly of the 1FZ makes for an engine with an extremely long life span. Except for the head gasket...

[LockedLX]

Originally Posted by fj80toyman

You can still see very nice cross-hatch in the bores, There's absolutely no ring-ridge in any of the holes.

That is impressive for over 200K miles. What's the deal with the coolant passages around 1 and 2? Thanks for the pics/info!

Originally Posted by cruiserdan

The select-fit original assembly of the 1FZ

Pardon my ignorance, but what does this mean? Blueprinted from the factory?

[cruiserdan]

Originally Posted by LockedLX

Pardon my ignorance, but what does this mean? Blueprinted from the factory?

In essence, yes.

Each crankshaft journal, connecting rod journal and cylinder bore are select-fit pieces.

All the main and rod bearings are fitted according to the diameters of the crankshaft pins and the block journals and the connecting rods. The pistons are also fitted to the individual bores.

[LockedLX]

That is awesome.. thanks!

[RLMS]

you know whats funny? A small block chevy, with a full rebuild including line boring, balancing ect... with one race season will look like that.....200,000 miles in that good if shape, how can you go wrong? Toyotas kick a**

justin

[fj80toyman]

Originally Posted by cruiserdan

Depending on the condition of the #1 cylinder wall it may be possible to hone it and replace one piston.

The select-fit original assembly of the 1FZ makes for an engine with an extremely long life span. Except for the head gasket...

If I decide to rebuild, in other words if I can find a decent '93 or '94 with a bad engine, I will take a good look to see if that's do-able, like I mentioned, haven't take a mic to it yet, but you may be on to something.

...about that head gasket? Dr. T's gotta sell some parts.

Dan.

[beno]

Originally Posted by fj80toyman

Pic 8 is where I am right now, deciding what to do with an engine I don't have a car for. Rebuild and keep around or what? No idea, anybody need a good rebuildable 1FZ from a '94?

Great pics and detail Dan. I am in the same position you are. I have a 1FZ long block that was taken out of a rig here and was "donated" (ahem, cough, cough) to me. I have the head at home and it looks great. The block is at American Toyota until I have time to get the sucker home and put it on an engine stand in my living room (aka: my home garage... ).

My plan is to take the whole thing apart and create a plan to make a nice, finely tuned engine with some machine work, and custom pistons/rods/etc. That way, when my 1FZ currently in my rig dies, it is merely a matter of pulling connections, unbolting some screws, pulling out the old engine and putting in the new one.

I consider the 1FZ sitting around a "rainy day fund" for my 80.



Looking forward to seeing what you decide to do.

Best.
-onur

[Falco80]

Cheers for the pics Dan.
It's not often you can see the inner workings of the mighty 1FZ! They are great engines!

[Ruadhrigh]

Thanks for sharing and nice work. I haven't many 80's for sale with bad engines, but maybe you could squeeze it into a different cruiser.

[Doc]

Originally Posted by beno

That way, when my 1FZ currently in my rig dies, it is merely a matter of pulling connections, unbolting some screws, pulling out the old engine and putting in the new one.

Dude- you just basically rebuilt it last year. It's going to keep going for another 15 years at least! You won't need that 'spare' for quite a while.

I vote you build a go-kart around it.

[calfj60]

Dan,

Thanks for posting all the pics and info....Very interesting especially to me....

[Ruadhrigh]

Originally Posted by Doc

Dude- you just basically rebuilt it last year. It's going to keep going for another 15 years at least! You won't need that 'spare' for quite a while.

I vote you build a go-kart around it.

We only rebuilt the top end, Onur isn't pleased with having "old parts" in the block.


Now that he works at Am Toy he has become a parts snob

[concretejungle]

Originally Posted by Doc

Dude- you just basically rebuilt it last year. It's going to keep going for another 15 years at least! You won't need that 'spare' for quite a while.

I vote you build a go-kart around it.

that's exactly what i was about to say

Now a 1fzfe go cart would be one heavy biotch.

how about a kick ass lawn mower powered by a 1fzfe?

[LX_TREME]

Originally Posted by concretejungle

that's exactly what i was about to say

Now a 1fzfe go cart would be one heavy biotch.

how about a kick ass lawn mower powered by a 1fzfe?

Riteee 1FZ-FE lawn mower uh? plus with TRD blower and some custom mandrel bent piping 6 of them stickin out straight from the headers , hmm wondering what it sounds like ... prolly all your neigbors will give you one of these

[Doc]

Originally Posted by concretejungle

how about a kick ass lawn mower powered by a 1fzfe?

Lawn? Do they have that in New Mexico?

[hj60]

Originally Posted by Doc

Lawn? Do they have that in New Mexico?

Sure they do.
But they do have to import them.

[Ruadhrigh]

Originally Posted by hj60

Sure they do.
But they do have to import them.

and the water to maintain them

[Tools R Us]

Other than the piston skirt, that motor looks fantastic! I have seen much worse looking bearings out of 10K mile motor, those were good for another 200K. The question becomes why the piston failure, is the oil jet for that cylinder plugged, is the pin bushing tighter than the others?

[bjowett]

If you decide to build it, I have a little info in this post....

http://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-te...e-project.html

[fj80toyman]

Originally Posted by Tools R Us

Other than the piston skirt, that motor looks fantastic! I have seen much worse looking bearings out of 10K mile motor, those were good for another 200K. The question becomes why the piston failure, is the oil jet for that cylinder plugged, is the pin bushing tighter than the others?

Troubleshooting is another matter. I looked carefully at each step as we took it apart and found no solid clue as to why it would have failed like this. It does look like it was under-oiled and got hot at some point, but the oiler was clear as far as I could tell.

Of course if it were to be gone through, something might be found that led to the problem - such as an oil blockage to the front cylinder in the passage, etc. If I take it that far, I could be more thorough, if so I'll definitely post the results.

My main conclusion at this point is that at some point in it's life it might not have had as frequent oil changes as necessary. I know the PO probably wasn't to blame as it looks like he took good care of it for the time that he owned it. Change yer oil and run a Blackstone every now and then.

Dan.

[fj80toyman]

Originally Posted by bjowett

If you decide to build it, I have a little info in this post....

http://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-te...e-project.html

Nicely done, thanks Brian. I'll mark that and keep it in mind. Dan.

[Tools R Us]

Originally Posted by fj80toyman

... My main conclusion at this point is that at some point in it's life it might not have had as frequent oil changes as necessary. ...

Don't agree, unless you cleaned the parts? That is one clean motor, if you hadn't said the mileage I would have guessed 50K. For it to have 200K and be that clean and have that little wear, it's had very good oil service.

[fj80toyman]

Originally Posted by Tools R Us

Don't agree, unless you cleaned the parts? That is one clean motor, if you hadn't said the mileage I would have guessed 50K. For it to have 200K and be that clean and have that little wear, it's had very good oil service.

...hmmm, point taken. I didn't mention it previously but I might suspect the cooling passages around #1 cyl as well, haven't looked.

The reason I think long time between oil changes was the horrible smell that eminated out when I un-capped the main bearings and the black goo that came out from there, but the main AND rod bearings were in reasonable shape. gurrrr, now I'm more curious, may need to dig sooner than I thought.

Dan.