My wife would have drove it until the block melted.
Help! Got the dreaded call - need a new motor!
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2001LC
SILVER Star
I agree.
Question is; was more damage done. Mechanic stated no oil in coolant, this is a good thing. It means he didn't see milkshake:
This engine may be cooked may be not!
If white smoke did not come from tailpipe, but was indeed steam off engine you may be lucky. That is if the Heater Tee actually just blew. But often we're talking about a longer term issue of low coolant level and running hot for a longer period of time. Then head gasket blowing and running engine very very hot for too long.
CO2 in radiator is a positive indicator head gasket is blown. So at minimum your looking at head job. Minimum I've heard $1,600 for each side needed. That is without machine shop time to rebuild heads, just milling.
Mechanic stated no coolant in oil is good indicator, you may have savable engine.
Here is what I'd do:
Drain coolant out of block today. It will leak into combustion chamber(s) through head gasket, not good.
Scope cylinders, if you see damage stop here, and find a replacement engine. If you see coolant vacuum it out, time is of the escents. $30 bosescope hooks to wifi of smart phone will do for this. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077GSKGFF/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
A scope can be used to inspect head gasket also externally and internally or pull intake off. This MAY indicate head warped.
Look for signs of high heat from engine running very very hot, if found I'd stop here and replace engine. Some signs that would tell me it's not worth saving engine are:
Melted plastic.
Hoses brown and hardened.
VVT cam sensor melted.
Melted knock sensor can be seen with borescope.
Intake plastic melted
Discoloration of metals.
If no signs of very very high heat I'd:
Drain oil and remove filter ASAP. Taking sample of oil from bottom of oil pan and second from last to drain out into a Blackstone sample bottle, have analyzed.
Add back 5 qts of fresh cheap oil & filter. I'd then use BG EPR run until hot, ~15 minutes (no coolant in system) Then dain oil and remove filter again. BG products may not be available in CA, so some creativity needed to use produce.
After draining oil the for the second time to remove the BG EPR, fill with 7 qts of good and and use a good filter.
Then hook up and oil pressure test gauge. If below minimum it could mean a bad oil pump, but at this point I assume engine is a no go. Low oil pressure is sign main bearings are damage.
Note the reason I suggest using (possible wasting) oil & filter and BG is before oil pressure test is two-fold. 1) Stop any further damage as soon ASAP from acidic oil (coolant in oil) 2) To get clean oil and passages for purest test results.
All this will cost a DIYer ~$100 and a few hours. Worth it to save a good lower end.
If all above good, add BG MOA run 5 minutes. If then sounding better do a head job. Compression test will reveal if one or both heads.
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Best post here so far. Only thing I'd say differently is if you are paying $1600 a side for a head gasket, you need to shoot your mechanic and find another one, IMHO. Even at $120 an hour (which is the max rate I've seen in my locality, most are $65-80), it's not a 10-hour-per side job. I wouldn't do both sides, myself, unless a compression test showed it needed it, but that is just me. If there were cylinders on both side that showed no compression, then I'd probably go with a motor swap.
2001LC
SILVER Star
As stated in my post: "Compression test will reveal if one or both heads"
Good point "if both head gaskets" as this would indicate it did get very very hot. But this should have revealed itself in other signs.
That best price I've "heard" was from a top independent shop in Boulder CO ($80 hr )on a non VVT engine. He, like I, spend a lot of time cleaning, testing and inspecting. It also best to have machine shop test & mill head(s) at minimum. Additional, often new heads bolts needed, testing is required. Basically we're taking a timing belt job, intake manifold removal (2/3 of a starter job), head cover gasket job, before even getting to a head. It all takes time and parts.
I'd not have anyone work on my stuff. But if I did, I'd only go with a top Toyota heavy duty mechanic for this stuff. One thing if nothing else, some of Slee's people, and I agree on, most work we do is correcting what general corner shop has worked on. Don't go cheap go quality.
I do some work for local mud members when I've time. I charge less than anyone I've ever heard of. I'd not do for less than $1,600 plus cost overruns! It's a big job, that most would rather replace engine than do.
I don’t think the Op is a diyer, totally different scenario if he was. Labour will be more than 10 hours in a workshop for one head. The main problem is the workshop has to warrant his work, well in the UK you do. If you charge someone for a repair it has to be good for at least 6 months, now if you are going to send one head of for repair you would need to send both as both have been in the same environment, one might be worse than the other but the assumption is it wouldn’t be to far behind. Now you have to repair the engine and warrant it to last, no good getting it running and five months down the road something has gone wrong and the cost is with the repair shop or they will make you sign a disclaimer as the engine work was done to your specification and not to there advise. All that repair money down the pan and still no good engine.
I worked in a car sales that would repair something like this for a forecourt car, but the dealerships wouldn’t touch it. It is all about the warranty.
I worked in a car sales that would repair something like this for a forecourt car, but the dealerships wouldn’t touch it. It is all about the warranty.
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Ps. For the forecourt car it wouldn’t matter if it blew in two weeks after a purchase as the used car warranty would cover it not the car sales.
My hourly rate was charged at £100 an hour with VAT, and that was over 10 years ago. That is British pounds not US dollars.
My hourly rate was charged at £100 an hour with VAT, and that was over 10 years ago. That is British pounds not US dollars.
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Take this for what it's worth.... I would pull the motor and swap it.... here's why.
Finding engines is pretty easy. Just because an engine has under 100k miles doesn't mean it's less worn than one with 200k miles - and you will never know until you actually open the engine up and inspect. There's sort of a "rule of thumb" friends and I have come up with when it comes to buying used engines or transmissions (learned the hard way) - buy an engine or transmission only from a vehicle that has significant side or rear damage from an accident. Most likely, the vehicle was being driven when the accident occurred. While this doesn't necessarily tell you that it's at 95% of original compression and the best one out there, again - nothing will until you tear an engine down - but it's a safe bet that it's a good runner.
Second point - when you get said used engine - replace any/all maintenance items on the stand (or have your mechanic do this). It's much easier and faster to replace, say, a water pump and timing belt with the engine on the stand than in the engine bay. Swap in a new timing belt, water pump, front/rear seals, reseal any gaskets, plugs, and re-install. If you, or your mechanic, really want - replace the oil pump as well.
Third point - Worst case scenario if you pull your engine and have it inspected (again, cheaper on the stand) and it turns out "oops, doesn't look as bad as we thought" - you still have a replacement engine in your vehicle running, with most likely a warranty of some type (if done by a shop) with all new/updated maintenance that should keep piece of mind for the next 50-100k+ miles. Take the old engine and sell it to recoup costs - the better condition, the more you'll get.
As for the discussion regarding BHG blowing exhaust into the coolant system - anyone who has ever owned/worked on MR2's knows that this type of head gasket is of the worst variety since the cooling systems in those cars are quite sensitive - a small trapped air bubble can overheat/cook an engine easily and quickly (and sometimes won't even show on the gauge). As someone indicated below - the exhaust gasses will pressurize the system to a point higher than the cap can take, which basically leaves your entire system able to blow pressured coolant into the overflow - which fills up, and out the overflow drain - as more coolant leaves, the cooling systems capacity to cool significantly decreases. As the cooling systems capacity to cool reduces, the oil then picks up the task of taking excessive heat - increasing temps of the oil, reducing it's effectiveness at lubricating. As it gets thinner, oil pressure decreases further.
Finding engines is pretty easy. Just because an engine has under 100k miles doesn't mean it's less worn than one with 200k miles - and you will never know until you actually open the engine up and inspect. There's sort of a "rule of thumb" friends and I have come up with when it comes to buying used engines or transmissions (learned the hard way) - buy an engine or transmission only from a vehicle that has significant side or rear damage from an accident. Most likely, the vehicle was being driven when the accident occurred. While this doesn't necessarily tell you that it's at 95% of original compression and the best one out there, again - nothing will until you tear an engine down - but it's a safe bet that it's a good runner.
Second point - when you get said used engine - replace any/all maintenance items on the stand (or have your mechanic do this). It's much easier and faster to replace, say, a water pump and timing belt with the engine on the stand than in the engine bay. Swap in a new timing belt, water pump, front/rear seals, reseal any gaskets, plugs, and re-install. If you, or your mechanic, really want - replace the oil pump as well.
Third point - Worst case scenario if you pull your engine and have it inspected (again, cheaper on the stand) and it turns out "oops, doesn't look as bad as we thought" - you still have a replacement engine in your vehicle running, with most likely a warranty of some type (if done by a shop) with all new/updated maintenance that should keep piece of mind for the next 50-100k+ miles. Take the old engine and sell it to recoup costs - the better condition, the more you'll get.
As for the discussion regarding BHG blowing exhaust into the coolant system - anyone who has ever owned/worked on MR2's knows that this type of head gasket is of the worst variety since the cooling systems in those cars are quite sensitive - a small trapped air bubble can overheat/cook an engine easily and quickly (and sometimes won't even show on the gauge). As someone indicated below - the exhaust gasses will pressurize the system to a point higher than the cap can take, which basically leaves your entire system able to blow pressured coolant into the overflow - which fills up, and out the overflow drain - as more coolant leaves, the cooling systems capacity to cool significantly decreases. As the cooling systems capacity to cool reduces, the oil then picks up the task of taking excessive heat - increasing temps of the oil, reducing it's effectiveness at lubricating. As it gets thinner, oil pressure decreases further.
I've seen a lot of the aftermarket work Torfab does and it seems to be of high quality and caliber. For maintenance work, I would tell others to caution what is diagnosed. Torfab isn't just a one-person shop, and the quality of work may depend on who is working on the vehicle.
Neighbor has an 80 series they did some work to, quoted a week and it took them 6 - and still couldn't figure out one of the runabilities of it.
I also previously had an 80 series that Tor himself owned. As the story goes - a good customer of theirs, who loved their 80, took it in to their shop for running rough. They diagnosed a blown head gasket, and when presented with the cost to fix - the owner sold it to Tor. Tor planned to swap in a V8, let it sit for a year, and then traded/bought a vehicle from me and I got said 80 series. Tor towed it up to about 20 minutes from my house and I drove it home. No overheating, it had a couple small stuttering issues, and an initial dropping into first gear issue. Compression test was done an hour later, and the results were outstanding - not in any way, shape, or form a blown head gasket. Turned out the EGR system had failed and caused some stuttering in how it ran. Simply bypassing the EGR (it was a 93 and already had a factory resistor, this was a mechanical bypass) allowed us to drive another 40-50k miles on it before selling it - that vehicle is now a workhorse in Hawaii. Point of the story is someone sold their beloved 80 to them because they misdiagnosed and gave a very high cost to repair.
2001LC
SILVER Star
@toyotaspeed90 I agree with most of what you said in #67 except "Third Point". The exception "inspect after" it may be good is why! Find this out beforehand is so valuable.
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The third scenario for me would be to remove both cylinder heads and pistons and send them all to the engineering shop for inspection, visually check the main bearings for serviceability. But there is a cost to this so might just weigh it in as scrap metal.
The reasoning for this is - how much time would be invested in diagnostics? Unfortunately, very good 'diagnostician' mechanics are hard to find these days and most are parts replacers and code readers (meaning, a code thrown for an O2 sensor could be a bad O2, or it could be a bad connection at a joint further up, and replacing the O2 does nothing). You start to get into compression, leak down, boroscope testing, and throwing any other types of gauges at it to test a variety of things (independent of what a scanner/ecu will tell you) and the price/time it takes to do that could yield - "you need a new engine, and it took us 9 hours to figure that out. Here's the bill for the diagnostics, here's the expected price to replace".
IF the mechanic and OP (or anyone else reading) says "spend X amount of time/money to determine if your opinion is to replace or fix" and the mechanic is trusted, then that might be a different response of "just replace".
Oddly enough, I ran across a video series (I think they're on #5) on youtube of some "mercedes" mechanic who is trying to diagnose what is going on with a loud noise in an 80 series. It's taken him 5 episodes and countless tests before he pulled the pan to find metal in the pan and that something is internally wrong. I only caught part of #5 (he explained what he did in the previous videos) and couldn't stand to watch 1/2 of it. My point is that - finding out what caused the overheating or head gasket to blow could take just as much time as to R&R the engine.
While I may be new to 100 series - I have had an 80 series that I did extensive work/testing on, have a 40 series I've taken down to the frame, and have had countless other Toyotas. MR2's are their own beast - and I bring them up because mechanics notoriously don't like to work on them. A mechanic/shop would probably take 2 days to replace a HG on a first gen, yet I can have the engine out and replaced (if I have another on the floor ready to go) in total time of less than 5 hours running driving to running driving. Understood the 100 series is more complicated from the untrained eye (MR2's seem complicated, but they aren't), but the concepts still apply.
Or do it the Russian way. Look at this 2UZ rebuild video. Unfortunately I don't speak/read Russian, but I think I can see overheated pistons with stuck rings, scored cylinder walls, blown headgasket etc.
Watch at around 5:20, it shows the before and after. Impressive overhaul.
Watch at around 5:20, it shows the before and after. Impressive overhaul.
2001LC
SILVER Star
^^^ It’s possible that's a 4runner 2UZ-fe engine, they installed it in a 03-05 LX470. ^^^
Engine was probably found sitting out in the elements, getting water soaked. Indications are, it was poorly maintained with infrequent oil changes. By look of bearings, it was possibly ran after coolant/water entered oil, but could just be from bad and/low oil. Probably had bad valve guide seals leaking oil into cylinder, a smoker. Engine possible spun a bearing before being salvaged.
It appears; they rebuild by just cleaning, condition and using an overhaul gasket kit. I say this because; they don’t show machining of head or block, and cylinders are so shinny during assembly it indicating they may have not even properly honed.
I did not see scored cylinders, just rust. I could not see is any pitting from rust.
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Here's a weathered 08 4runner 2UZ-fe VVti engine that sat out and or was washed. Water entered head intake port through intake gaskets and/or fuel injector seals.
Standing water in #1  is likely from recent power washing. #5 you can see orange color at one valve, indicating water sat and evaporated over longer period of time.
Most cylinders just had rust staining, with exception of two that had mild rust pitting. This pitting can be honed out, which would remove about 3 thousandths. This would lead to a ring end gap of 9 to 12 thousandths over what it was. With carefully measurements one could make a close estimated if it would or would not be within factory spec during final assembly, before committing resources.
Engine was probably found sitting out in the elements, getting water soaked. Indications are, it was poorly maintained with infrequent oil changes. By look of bearings, it was possibly ran after coolant/water entered oil, but could just be from bad and/low oil. Probably had bad valve guide seals leaking oil into cylinder, a smoker. Engine possible spun a bearing before being salvaged.
It appears; they rebuild by just cleaning, condition and using an overhaul gasket kit. I say this because; they don’t show machining of head or block, and cylinders are so shinny during assembly it indicating they may have not even properly honed.
I did not see scored cylinders, just rust. I could not see is any pitting from rust.
_______________________________
Here's a weathered 08 4runner 2UZ-fe VVti engine that sat out and or was washed. Water entered head intake port through intake gaskets and/or fuel injector seals.
Standing water in #1  is likely from recent power washing. #5 you can see orange color at one valve, indicating water sat and evaporated over longer period of time.
Most cylinders just had rust staining, with exception of two that had mild rust pitting. This pitting can be honed out, which would remove about 3 thousandths. This would lead to a ring end gap of 9 to 12 thousandths over what it was. With carefully measurements one could make a close estimated if it would or would not be within factory spec during final assembly, before committing resources.
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