Head Gasket job (total noob) (1 Viewer)

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Curious to see if it switches to a P0302 if you moved the spark plug to #2?

But either way, congrats on the rebuild. A bit of smoke after seems to be common, at least it is with me.
@half k cruiser found one spark plug which was not fine and he put it to cylinder one to make it easier to replace.
 
Depends on how the others look but even through the dealership these plugs a only like $2 each. If you install 6 new ones then you will have a reference point as to how old all are and you should be good to go for a long time.

The others all gapped out at around .030 I forgot all about the beat up one. @Jorgito I'm sorry I didn't remember this when I spoke with you earlier. Your #1 plug is definitely going to cause a misfire because the tip was so beat up on it. Once you replace that you should be running smoother.
 
Changed spark plug in cylinder #1 and missfire is gone. Put the red toyota antifreeze and now I have around 180 Fahrenheit, not sure if it is fine or not given the outside freezing temperature.
 
180 sounds great! Freezing temps? Where are you?
 
One last issue I have. I had some cables which seemed useless to me and by accident I disconnected (cutted) the cable going from the dash to the harness. The harness is LFDLH896 , there seems to be a coil (896-1AH-D-R2) with four connections , one from the dash which is probably the light switch , one cable is going from the coil splits and is probably going to the lights (two positives, two negatives) , there is one cable going from the coil to the positive of the battery.

As the lights were upgraded with lightforce wiring harness and fyrlyt 150w xenophot lights I thought that these cables are useless. The result is that now I don't have the headlight lights. Honestly I don't like the cables as it seems that only what it does is to power the light switch in the dash board. I tried to look into the wiring diagram but I am not really understanding what connects where.

Attached are the pictures:

The upgraded lights:

The wiring harness itself:

The coil:

Is there any other way how to proceed without putting this weird and old and probably failing in the future harness ?

Jorge
 
180 sounds great! Freezing temps? Where are you?
I am in Kansas and it was around 25 F . The true is that I completely overhauled the cooling system, basically all is new:

  1. New thermostat
  2. New water pump
  3. New radiator (from 1992-1994 series)
  4. New blue fan clutch tuned by Landtank
  5. All new hoses
  6. New red coolant

Jorge
 
It is actually a relay. Maybe it is switched by the light switch to power your headlights. You might want to clean up the contacts on the relay.
 
Interesting, so what you call a coil I think most would call a relay. I wouldn't be too concerned about that going out, lots of people use relays, especially on auxiliary lighting. My 130w IPF's run a relay due to the fact that they draw power direct from the battery. Its not a bad idea to carry a few spare relays anyhow. You can get much higher quality 4 and 5 pin relays from the salvage yard if you go look around. I would just swap that one with a quality unit and put it all back in.
 
One last issue I have. I had some cables which seemed useless to me and by accident I disconnected (cutted) the cable going from the dash to the harness. The harness is LFDLH896 , there seems to be a coil (896-1AH-D-R2) with four connections , one from the dash which is probably the light switch , one cable is going from the coil splits and is probably going to the lights (two positives, two negatives) , there is one cable going from the coil to the positive of the battery.

As the lights were upgraded with lightforce wiring harness and fyrlyt 150w xenophot lights I thought that these cables are useless. The result is that now I don't have the headlight lights. Honestly I don't like the cables as it seems that only what it does is to power the light switch in the dash board. I tried to look into the wiring diagram but I am not really understanding what connects where.

Attached are the pictures:

The upgraded lights:

The wiring harness itself:

The coil:

Is there any other way how to proceed without putting this weird and old and probably failing in the future harness ?

Jorge
My bad, I did not have the light's connected to the battery. Now all is fine and good. Thanks to everybody !!
 
Question:

I bought distributor rotor and cap. Can I change the rotor without taking the distributor out of the head ? I looked into FSM but it doesn't say anything. I don't see what is actually holding the rotor in place. There seems no screw there .

Thanks,

Jorge
 
Jorge, great job for a noob. Yes, you can change the rotor without taking the dizzy out of the head. I believe there's a small Phillips screw that attaches the rotor to the dizzy shaft. It'll only go on the shaft one way. Again, great job.
 
Thanks guys for your help, when trying to change the cables from old dizzy cap to the new one almost all of the cable clips broken and some cables are really bad. I will have to order new cables also , btw was surprised by the price of those OEM cables - around 120 bucks.

Jorge
 
Nice work Jorgito. The OEM cables are well worth it as they are all pre laid out and fit perfectly under the run. There should be a date code on the wire itself that tells when it was manufactured just to entertain how old yours were.
 
Hi,

The cables were original from 1997. Amazing that they were still ok after 240k miles

Jorge
 
@Jorgito was that $120 from Olathe Toyota ? They should cut you a pretty good discount especially if you tell them your a member of the local club.
Yes Olathe Toyota , got the LCA discount.
 
Some evaluation after all the work while I am not car expert:
  1. car idles much nicer then before, I think it has to do with all the cleaning and new hoses around intake
  2. the MPG is slightly better then it was
  3. I still have the same cranking issues I had before the head gasket job. Sometimes it takes a long time (like 5-7 seconds) to start the engine. I am planning to work on the fuel pump as all other was either replaced or cleaned
  4. I have the same amount of smoke coming out of exhaust as before the head gasket job. In the morning and now in the cold weather I can see a lot of white smoke when car is started. The smoke disappears after while, the smoke has bit of sweet smell.

I am constantly checking all levels, there is no coolant loss but sometimes the level is going up sometimes is going little down, I am not sure what exactly influences this.
 
Mine has the same symptoms as #4 in the cold. I think its normal. I've never done the head gasket (nor has it been done), and all indicators show no problems with my hg. or coolant loss.
 

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