Another 2013 head gasket goes kaput

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Zill said:
I would just have a machine shop take a look at it. You’ve already gone this far, and spending a little more time at this stage will create peace of mind down the road. It would suck to have to redo the job in the near future due to some small warpage which can’t be seen to the naked eye.
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Yeah, I will do that tomorrow. Turns out I was being too broad in my searching.. "cylinder head shops" are more of a thing around here than "auto machine shop."

I'm reasonably confident the heads are flat, I just don't like some of the corrosion that had moved across the sealing surface in a couple areas. The machine shop will confirm that tomorrow I hope.
 
bloc said:
@clrussell called it. I'm not sure they are necessary but it wasn't a large extra cost so I just ordered them. And if I screw something up they are reusable.

I do suspect installing the heads with them will be interesting. Typically they get installed into the block before the head is laid down, partly to ensure they all get installed to the correct depth and threads are clean, nothing is left on the gasket mating surface, etc. But I suspect getting the head back over them with the exhaust manifolds already on the heads will be impossible. For the passenger side that wouldn't be the end of the world.. I have that downpipe out and can fish the manifold up through the gap. But the driver side is a whole different thing. With the fuel and KDSS lines running along the frame rail the access to the bolts is severely restricted. Plus that downpipe is much more difficult (if not impossible in my driveway) to remove.. I'm pretty sure those bolts into the muffler assembly are completely seized based on the corrosion appearance, on top of not even being sure I can fish the downpipe out over the crossmember without a lift anyway.

So when I get everything cleaned up I'll explore my options.
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Apologies, missed that you were already down this path. You've probably already explored this as well but I think ARP makes studs with the ends broached for a hex socket so they can be inserted/removed with the head in place. Not sure if that would help.
 
Moby said:
Apologies, missed that you were already down this path. You've probably already explored this as well but I think ARP makes studs with the ends broached for a hex socket so they can be inserted/removed with the head in place. Not sure if that would help.
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Yeah I was assuming they were like that stock, but thinking about it now might not have been a great assumption.

Getting them in there without the hex end would be a long process.
 
bloc said:
Yeah, I will do that tomorrow. Turns out I was being too broad in my searching.. "cylinder head shops" are more of a thing around here than "auto machine shop."

I'm reasonably confident the heads are flat, I just don't like some of the corrosion that had moved across the sealing surface in a couple areas. The machine shop will confirm that tomorrow I hope.
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A little xylene or acetone and a rag are your friends for the "corrosion" both are safe for aluminum heads and do a great job without scratching surfaces.
 
All the ARP head studs I've worked with (22RE and 3VZ engines) have had the hex in one end for installing. But this is another vote for pulling the engine out for this job.

I assume you know the trick for testing your valves for leaks. Very easy.

Lapping is also easy, I prefer the suction cup hand tool so I can "feel" the value getting seated. Just gotta make sure you get every grain of the abrasive lapping compound cleaned out after.
 
One look at that "cylinder head shop" and I got back into the car and left. Half-assembled cars and engines everywhere, waist-high piles of parts against some of the walls.. I couldn't see where they'd do the actual machining. No ******* way I'd leave my heads there.

Found another across town and while they quoted about a week (maybe less) they had much more of the old school engine machine shop feel. Aka trust. He said the valve seats shouldn't be a problem even if I didn't want to lap them.. but might as well. He said over that kind of mileage it takes so little condensation or something to sit in there and start a little corrosion.. also why the valves themselves didn't have the issue, the different metallurgy was less prone to that corrosion.

The head guy will be back tomorrow to check flatness and let me know what they want to do.


ARP studs showed up, they do have a 3/16" hex in the top end. I'd prefer metric but I guess it won't be an issue very often. The kit does come with some short bolts to replace two M8 fasteners at the rear of each head external to the valve cover. From experience, I won't be using those. They'll corrode quickly, and there is no advantage over the stock hardware in that location.
 
Heads are at the machine shop. The guy that needs to see them will be there tomorrow and he'll call with his opinion on them.

This is the primary spot I didn't like. The lighting is really tough to get right here..

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I'm continuing to clean and handle parts. I tore down the cam towers today and based on the wear I'm seeing.. once I handle the HG and valve springs, this will be a 400-500k engine. The cam lobes have zero scoring, only polished. Only a couple of the cam journals have anything resembling scoring.. and you can't even feel it with a fingernail. I'm still cleaning the trays.

Knowing I'd have to clean the timing cover and not wanting to contaminate the oil pump that is embedded into it, I just removed the pump. Wear also looks fantastic.. you can barely tell the rotors have been used.

I had a serious pucker-up moment while removing one of the screws for the oil pump.. they are #3 philips (actually, JIS, but I don't have a JIS-3) and 8ft-lbf, but kindof stuck. My battery impact snapped the tip of the bit off in one... fortunately the way it broke it didn't mangle anything.

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That part didn't want to come out though.. the sharpest pick I had wouldn't get in there. But a rare earth magnet did.

DON'T USE CHEAP BITS. I usually don't but this one made it into the rotation for another reason.

As I get this stuff cleaned I do plan to take some detailed pics as a reference of a healthy engine with my mileage.
 
bloc said:
I had a serious pucker-up moment while removing one of the screws for the oil pump.. they are #3 philips (actually, JIS, but I don't have a JIS-3) and 8ft-lbf, but kindof stuck. My battery impact snapped the tip of the bit off in one... fortunately the way it broke it didn't mangle anything.

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That part didn't want to come out though.. the sharpest pick I had wouldn't get in there. But a rare earth magnet did.

DON'T USE CHEAP BITS. I usually don't but this one made it into the rotation for another reason.
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This looks like a job for a hand impact driver. Like this:


They work really well for popping loose stuck screws like this. Absolutely mandatory for working on motorcycle engines.
 
KLF said:
This looks like a job for a hand impact driver. Like this:


They work really well for popping loose stuck screws like this. Absolutely mandatory for working on motorcycle engines.
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I have one actually, and I agree they are indispensable for certain jobs. I just wasn't comfortable attacking the back of the timing cover with that and a hammer, even if the tool redirects some of the forces. If I had taken the time to fully support the front of the housing I'd feel better about it.

The 1/4 impact with a good bit and solid pressure holding the bits in worked well for the rest of them.
 
Hard to believe there is so little wear at 235k miles. When looking closely it isn't a brand new engine, but remarkably free of scoring or substantial wear.

Most of these pics make the wear look worse than it is in person. d

The outer rotor of the oil pump does have one very light line.. And the front plate very little wear.

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Timing chain drive gears on the crank also looking great.. polished, but the teeth aren't excessively sharp or worn.

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I can only find one mild mark on any of the four cams. Can't even feel it with a fingernail. Otherwise the cams look fantastic, with just polishing of the lobes.

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One thing I don't like about this engine design-wise is the oil sprayer tubes attached to the back of the timing cover. The supply for these is in a couple of the cam journal caps, and a thick oring sits on a boss in that location. Then the valve cover lays down and some lugs on the back of the cover hit those orings, with the valve cover bolts clamping it all together.

Well those orings stick to everything after substantial mileage and that tends to bend the tubes on disassembly. The tubes are riveted to the back of the valve cover so there isn't a good way to separate them and really massage the tubes back into place. If you don't pay attention here and the lugs don't fall into their little bosses on the valve cover the whole thing can crack as you tighten the bolts. TCCN mentions using a rubber mallet on the valve cover to shock it before tightening all the bolts. I would have preferred these lugs being solidly attached to the rear of the valve cover.

That said the sprayer tubes are probably a big reason wear is so low. Each roller rocker has its own jet of oil keeping things lubricated.

I know this sounds complicated but hopefully these pics make it a bit more clear.

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The upper camshaft caps are the only things that aren't effectively wear-free. Which makes some sense.. they hold the cams in as they push down on the rockers and valves.

Still, nothing to be concerned about at all, just not a perfectly new machined surface.

All of this stuff is in the category of "pics look worse than in person."

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The cam towers are cleaned and reassembled, and now getting stored waiting for the heads and other stuff.

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Most of the timing system will get reused. The primary chain tensioners are the only thing I'm replacing, as the driver's side one wasn't extending fully and that was leading to some mild chain noise on cold start. Haven't had the "bad rattle" in 50k+.

Cleaned and in storage. I didn't go too crazy on the phasers.. didn't want solvent or anything inside the working parts.

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I spent a solid 3-4 hours cleaning the front timing cover. Possibly 5 or more. Either way, it's done, and the oil pump is reassembled. Posting more pics of the condition.. for the mileage, it's fantastic.

The previous pic was the plate that bolts to the back of the timing cover. These are the cover and oil pump assembly itself.

Wear mostly from the drive rotor.. very very minor. The driven rotor shows virtually no wear at all.

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Here you can see how the edges of the rotor wear on the aluminum

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Before bolting the oil pump plate back on. Everything was lubed with a light coat of fresh synthetic oil. I'll likely disconnect the fuel pump or injectors and crank the engine for a while to prime everything before the first start.

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Timing chain tensioners! I'm considering starting a dedicated thread for this but it'll have to wait.

Over the years I have had symptoms of chain tensioner issues. Back below 150k I had a few instances of the really bad death rattle at cold start.. would go away as soon as the engine developed oil pressure. Switching to 5w-30 addressed this pretty effectively.

Starting closer to 170k I'd occasionally get the 3UR cold start timing chain light rattle. This would persist well after the engine developed oil pressure, but as things warmed up it would quiet down. TCCN's "everything wrong with the 3UR" video does a great job of showing the mechanism here.. though we still don't know why the tensioners aren't extending fully.

Getting in there to change tensioners was somewhere on my list.. as well as fix the oil leak. Pretty glad I was too "patient" (aka lazy) to do all of this before the head gasket popped and I had to duplicate all the work.

Some stuff online suggests the ultimate issue with the tensioners is the ratchet assembly fails and allows the unit to compress under pressure from the cam lobes pulling on the slack side of the chain. From my digging? nope.

Either way, I now have the tensioners on the bench. I disassembled the driver's side to try and figure out what's going on.

In short, it isn't the ratchet failing. I actually can't tell what's going on.. everything inside mine seem nearly perfect. No deposits gumming things up, no significant wear to the plunger or ratchet..

I will say on the bench the driver's side unit couldn't be compressed nearly as much as the passenger side. This felt like it was just more oil trapped inside, making the air spring smaller.. but it was hard to tell. I could see that the driver's unit wouldn't extend as much as the passenger, though I suspect they are designed this way.

Driver's side has the orange key. For the colorimpaired.. that's the bottom one.

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These units are surprisingly complex when you get them apart. Yes the primary plunger has a ratchet preventing it collapsing when there isn't oil pressure. But there is also another plunger inside that, with a small check valve unit also controlling extension.

Drive out the little pin and the ratchet allows the plunger to be removed.

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Toyota did change the part numbers.
 
One extra detail.. yes, one of the teeth on the plunger is a little more flat than the rest but this is extremely minor in person. I just chalk it up to most of its life being spent in that spot. The ratchet itself was totally fine.

I am not home to get more pictures but did remember toyota has a significant difference in how these are mounted to the engine, seemingly to control oil and maybe air flow into the tensioner assembly. I'll get some pics of that when I can.

I'm a little disappointed.. figured I'd get this thing apart and see exactly why we have the issues so often, but I nothing jumped out at me. I won't be disassembling the new ones to see the differences though..
 
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