2F problem.. what do you think?

[Bennett]

I only got one good reply on PBB so I cross posted here. Figured there are more eyes her than the 60 section.
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could use some help diagnosing a problem on a fj60 that my neighbor purchased a month ago.
This young man is just married and had a Tundra that he was upside down in ..( Thanks Larry Miller Toyota), he and asked me what would be a could replacement and affordable . I suggested a Fj60 and he brought several by that were dogs. I ran a compression test on them and told him to keep looking. He finally found one , 1985 with 160k, One owner vehicle with minimal rust and had great steady oil pressure and compression. He bought it for under 3K.
Move ahead one month. He drives it daily and I told him to watch the water temps and oil pressure, which he said he did. Oil was change just prior to purchase.This past Saturday while driving up the canyon with his CD blasting ... he said he immediately lost all power at 55 mph.With the tunes on high he said he heard nothing of a warning. He pulled to the side of the road and looked under and found a large puddle of oil. Very little oil on the dipstick and temp gauge pegged on hot. He turned it over to try and start and said it made horrible noises and would not start.. Next day he towed it home. I went over the morning to give it a visual and to my surprise the engine turns( with oil) over and sounds fine and there are no apparent holes in the block or the oil pan. It would not start and there are no noises.
He said he had great oil pressure until it stopped and the coolant level is still up and is tested at -20*with no oil in the coolant.
Looking for some suggestions as to what you might think the problem is. I still suspect a rod or bearing but what made me wonder further is I found no heavy source of oil externally. The outside oil pan is bone dry and the only oil is where the bellhousing meets the motor. Looks like a normal rear main leak. I can't tell where he lost the oil from .I looked for the infamous oil plug on the head problem but I am not sure where that is unless it is under one of the air cleaner support bolts. In summary he said it just a loud banging noise and loss of power.

Anyway shoot me an opinion .
bennett

 

[CRZRJames]

Think of it as the perfect storm (I'll make assumptions here): It was half a quart low to begin with, the blow-by finally blew out the rear main seal and squirted another half a quart out, there was half a quart in the upside down oil filter. At one and a half quarts low, you will have a hard time getting a reading on the dipstick. The upside down oil filter explains why you got a reading on the dipstick the next day because it drained back out and into the oil pan.

F and 2F engines have great challenges with oiling the back half of the crank under the best of conditions. An engine with those miles may be developing some wear in the crank bearings which will cut down on oil pressure further enhancing the opportunity of running the rear bearings dry.

Pull the drain plug and collect a cup full of oil and have a look-see. If the engine ran low on oil at a bearing, there will probably be metal flakes in the oil. This would be a place to start. He may have shut it down just prior to doing major damage to the engine although it sounds to me like there is some bottom end damage.

Hang around, someone else will chime in here soon with some other ideas.

Also, you may want to try posting on LCML. There are several knowledgeable Landcruiser mechanics that lurk there.

Good Luck,
James