Daughter's '97 SR5 blew the head gasket

[pappy]

So, I found a Taco with a blown HG for daughter's roommate since she's looking for a beater truck. I texted them both with a link to the Taco, and here's her response

Is this the same roommate that put a rock through her oil pan? Tell Isabelle I'm disappointed in her. She should be chopping at the bit to help out her friend and get them out of that damn Mercedes.

 

[alia176]

Is this the same roommate that put a rock through her oil pan? Tell Isabelle I'm disappointed in her. She should be chopping at the bit to help out her friend and get them out of that damn Mercedes.

Yep, the same friend. I think Isabelle is going to go look at a 2wd Taco with her roommate now that I made her aware of it.

 

[alia176]

heads are back from the machine shop. One of the camshaft had a slight bend in it, nobody knows when this happened. They were able to source another used cam and stuck it in for free, all is good. Very little was taken off the heads and they checked the valve clearances. They found couple of loose #s on the exhaust side before the shaving and were able to find shims that made the #s a bit tighter. I had them Vat clean the lower intake manifold, which they did and bead blasted it.

I ordered a injector cleaning machine thing so when it gets to my house, I'll test/clean the injectors, and re-assemble the intake manifold.

 

[pappy]

When is daughter-of-Ali going to get those pretty things installed?

 

[reklund5]

 

[alia176]

Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.....the girl has long nails and still gets it done which amazes me.

the block surface isn't pretty but it is what it is. If this was my 80, the block would be heading to the machine shop due to the imperfections. I'll see if I can find a decent straightedge and see how the deck clearances are.

 

[alia176]

Meanwhile, on my dining table I got the injector cleaning/testing and O ring+filter replacement project going on. One of the filter was twisted from the installation back in 1997 and they are dark colored. Ultrasonic cleaned the injectors and did a nice job on the bottom half of the injectors. #2 injector needs to be cleaned again because the flow pattern wasn't as nice as the others.

 

[pappy]

That has to help get some power back. How do the filters come out?

 

[Combat Wombat]

I had a few of these, and found that the crossover pipe delete (aka headers) would help stop further gasket issues in the future.
The firewall region can get very heatsoaked from the exhaust crossover pipe, including cooking the crap out of the rear of the heads.
I rebuilt one 3vzfe, wish I never sold it

Bought another 4runner and put a 3.4 (5vz) and it was alright
That got sold off and the next owner put in a 1GRfe (4.0 dohc) and it was next level in every way.
I later had a 2.8 (3L) diesel 4runner, reduction gears and silly stuff made it a total weapon in the bush. Not so school drop off friendly though.
Finally, 1KZTE... Surf SSR-X. That was fairly sedate in stock form. Did a huge amount of trickery and mods on that. Still miss it.

 

[alia176]

That has to help get some power back. How do the filters come out?

 

[pappy]

Did you use the tool, or did you bubba this?

 

[alia176]

Did you use the tool, or did you bubba this?

Bought it and made life easy. Tried using a 90deg pick but there's no way to pull those things out. They've been living there since '97!!

 

[Wildcat Walker]

I am doing a similar project on a 92. Truck hadn't run in 22 years and the injectors were stuck. I bench cleaned them, but for reliability opted to send them to RC fuel injection service for cleaning and testing. I like your setup, what's a machine like that cost and what sort of fluid are you using?

 

[alia176]

I am doing a similar project on a 92. Truck hadn't run in 22 years and the injectors were stuck. I bench cleaned them, but for reliability opted to send them to RC fuel injection service for cleaning and testing. I like your setup, what's a machine like that cost and what sort of fluid are you using?

Mine was $230 shipped from eBay and using mineral spirits for testing, ultrasonic fluid mixed with water 5:1 for cleaning

 

[Wildcat Walker]

Mine was $230 shipped from eBay and using mineral spirits for testing, ultrasonic fluid mixed with water 5:1 for cleaning

The cost of fuel injection service from RC was exactly $230.10, ironic. Usually I would rather spend the money on tools, but I didn't even realize you could buy such a thing. Thanks for sharing.

 

[alia176]

The cost of fuel injection service from RC was exactly $230.10, ironic. Usually I would rather spend the money on tools, but I didn't even realize you could buy such a thing. Thanks for sharing.

I think I have had that company clean at least one set of injectors for me before, and I think they do a great job. However, this is not rocket science, and if you have to do this more than once it will pay for itself. I have three vehicles with fuel injectors, so I figure it was time to invest. Additionally, it's fun to try different things to see if anything improved. For a spreadsheet nerd like me, testing and cleaning injectors is very therapeutic

 

[alia176]

We made little progress yesterday in the four hour window before the sun went down and the temps went below freezing. One more time of cleaning the block surface before putting on the head gasket and the pass side head. I dressed up the heads in the back of my 4runner while she got the block ready. We did a dry run of me pretending to bring the head in and placing it on the first try so she sat on the cowling, and got ready to assist as necessary. After the head went on, I had pretend to be a 90 yo grumpy and tell her NO POWER TOOLS., (@Timmy65 would approve) only hand tools and "feel" the fasteners going in. She understood why but she didn't like it, and I really didn't care. It did take me a little while to explain what "torque to yield" bolts are, because she heard it from Tim's videos and from me.

Oh, we checked the deck surface with a machinist's straight edge and a feeler gauge. Nothing glaring stood out and the 0.20 thou didn't make it under the straight edge anywhere.

 

[alia176]

Teenagers and their ways of labeling things. She labeled these two bolts "fuel circle thing". Mind you, the bolts do not go to anything to do with fuel. They are for the "radiator bypass tube" that sits in the valley. But, when it came time to reattach the tube to the block, she immediately knew where the bolts were.

 

[pappy]

Teenagers and their ways of labeling things. She labeled these two bolts "fuel circle thing". Mind you, the bolts do not go to anything to do with fuel. They are for the "radiator bypass tube" that sits in the valley. But, when it came time to reattach the tube to the block, she immediately knew where the bolts were.

How come you didn't install the head with the camshafts in place? Does this use shim-n-bucket adjustments?

 

[alia176]

How come you didn't install the head with the camshafts in place? Does this use shim-n-bucket adjustments?

Yup, bucket and shims are right under the lobes.

These two pics show the head bolts holes are located directly under the camshaft. You have to remove the cams for access!!