My story:
I live in the North Yorkshire area of the UK and bought my cruiser 6-7 years ago.
It is a 1998 VX 4.7 petrol that had already been converted to run on LPG (propane) with a single point injection system (pre-throtle body). The car had covered about 60,000 miles when the conversion was done. The car was very tidy and had covered 110,000 miles when I bought it. I have had all the usual little niggles with the AHC which failed a year into my ownership (I just live with the basic off mode until I can get around to affording a fix). Towards the end of last year I began to notice a gradual drop in power and I had problems with it stalling at junctions on deceleration. A friend tested the compression and found that the readings were well out of spec. I took the car to an engine rebuilders and they confirmed a badly cracked cylinder head (beyond repair) and most of my exhaust valves had radial cracks. The valves are being replaced but a replacement remanufactured cylinder head is proving impossible to find in the UK. My car has now been with the mechanic for 8 months! I know that I could probably buy a new cylinder head from Toyota but this would be outside of my budget (us Yorkshire men have a reputation you know
). Well I'm sorry for the length of the story but I can see that there is a vast wealth of knowledge and experience on this forum and I would value your helpful advice especially if you could help me source a cylinder head. My mechanic has tried a few times and an importer from the US he was using gave us hope but twice the heads were faulty and could not be used.
I've been looking through your pictures and reading some of the posts and it has made me want my cruiser back soon. We had a particularly bad winter last year and even though my cruiser was well down on power I managed to pull a few other motorists out of the snow. My other car is a BMW 3 series and you can imagine how that performs in the snow
.....4 months to go!
In hopeful anticipation,
Steve
I live in the North Yorkshire area of the UK and bought my cruiser 6-7 years ago.
It is a 1998 VX 4.7 petrol that had already been converted to run on LPG (propane) with a single point injection system (pre-throtle body). The car had covered about 60,000 miles when the conversion was done. The car was very tidy and had covered 110,000 miles when I bought it. I have had all the usual little niggles with the AHC which failed a year into my ownership (I just live with the basic off mode until I can get around to affording a fix). Towards the end of last year I began to notice a gradual drop in power and I had problems with it stalling at junctions on deceleration. A friend tested the compression and found that the readings were well out of spec. I took the car to an engine rebuilders and they confirmed a badly cracked cylinder head (beyond repair) and most of my exhaust valves had radial cracks. The valves are being replaced but a replacement remanufactured cylinder head is proving impossible to find in the UK. My car has now been with the mechanic for 8 months! I know that I could probably buy a new cylinder head from Toyota but this would be outside of my budget (us Yorkshire men have a reputation you know
). Well I'm sorry for the length of the story but I can see that there is a vast wealth of knowledge and experience on this forum and I would value your helpful advice especially if you could help me source a cylinder head. My mechanic has tried a few times and an importer from the US he was using gave us hope but twice the heads were faulty and could not be used.I've been looking through your pictures and reading some of the posts and it has made me want my cruiser back soon. We had a particularly bad winter last year and even though my cruiser was well down on power I managed to pull a few other motorists out of the snow. My other car is a BMW 3 series and you can imagine how that performs in the snow
.....4 months to go!In hopeful anticipation,
Steve
