Builds Last of the BJs: 1989 BJ60 restoration, 15B-T swap

[Eurasiaoverland]

15B-T oil pump

I want to change the rear timing cover gasket as a precaution (there was at some stage an oil leak in the area, though I think it came from higher up the engine). I also want to check the splines on the crankshaft oil pump drive gear. So the rear cover has to come off. Scraping off the 30 year hardened paper gaskets is an ordeal, but eventually the thing comes up good. I'm replacing the oil pump piston (because I have one) and the old plug, which is rusted on the outside. Why this little plug comes in its own cardboard box, I cannot imagine.

The oil pump gears are almost like new (a few very light marks) so I'm keeping them original (even though I have a new set). Instead of petroleum jelly, I am using a bit of assembly lube to keep them lubricated before their first operation.

I had previously rebuilt the 3BII oil pump/rear timing cover which could have been used on the 15B-T. However, whilst being interchangeable, the 15B engines (and 14B-T) have a higher capacity oil pump, so I'm sticking with what came with the 15B-T.

With the 3BII front timing cover. This part does not have the aperture for the onboard PAS pump machined, so I will use this alongside the belt driven BJ60 pump.

Rear view.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

15B-T stripdown

I got a little bit ahead of myself in the last two posts.

After getting the 15B-T, I have decided to do a partial strip down. I don't know the exact age of the engine, but it's a 1994 block casting and has a 5-vane vacuum pump, so I can date it from between May and December of 1994. So even though it appears to be low mileage, it's over 30 years old and deserves a once-over. So I will do the following:

-Remove manifolds, turbo
-Remove front and rear timing covers
-Remove water pump and thermostat housing
-Remove rocker shaft, pushrods and camshaft
-Remove sump pan and oil pickup/transfer pipes
-Remove oil cooler and filter housing
-Remove vacuum pump

I sometimes feel that I am being too careful and wasting time disturbing things that don't need to be disturbed. But I will make two discoveries on the engine which if not caught, could have caused major problems down the line.

First, as there is no factory manual for this engine, I will assume it is correctly statically timed, so I will measure the plunger stroke at TDC for #1 cylinder. Note that this is the old 3BII harmonic balancer (which will be replaced):

I measure that at 0.94 mm, which is the same as the 15B-FT specification.

I then remove the injection pump, injection pipes and vacuum pump:

The PAS pump drive is really clever - it is driven by a female spline drive in the vacuum pump drive gear, which is itself driven by the injection pump drive gear:

Then time to remove the Mega Cruiser double rotor PAS pump. This would make a good power unit for a hydraulic winch I think.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

15B-T stripdown 2

Removing the front timing cover brings a nice surprise. It's like opening a clean dishwasher. It's true that DI diesel engines are less sooty and cleaner than than IDI engines, but this level of cleanliness suggests good maintenance and very little use. In fact, the reddish tinge of oxidation on all the steel/iron parts in the engine makes me think that at some point it has been parked up for a long time, many years I would imagine, in some military surplus yard in Japan.

I check the valve clearances which are all correct except for #4 exhaust valve. This is too tight, but I suspect this was a maintenance mistake as it is set to the intake clearance. I'm certainly not taking the head off to check the valve seat, and my understanding is that it's not common for diesels to burn valve seats anyway.

Checking the backlash on the timing gears - all good of course.

After removing the pushrods and suspending the lifters, the camshaft can be removed:

This is when I make the first 'discovery'. The #1 camshaft bearing has started to delaminate. It's not much compared to the trashed bearing I found in my 567k km 3BII (see previous posts), but it's a little surprising given the otherwise excellent condition of the engine. It seems that these bearings break down with age as well as simple mileage.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

15B-T stripdown 3

Using my cheap eBay puller yet again - this time to pull off the crankshaft drive gear.

Removing the sump pan. I hate to disturb the factory sealant, but I will be vindicated by the second 'discovery' (next post). This and I wanted to make a proper job of replacing the rear crankshaft seal, which requires the sump pan to be removed.

Piston oil squirter. The major difference of the 15B-T block compared to the 3BII/14B/14B-T block is that due to the bigger piston bores, the oil squirters are bolted to the bottom of the block in all 15Bs, compared to being pressed through the side of the block in the earlier engines.

This is as much stripping of the block as I will do.

Checking the backlash on the oil pump drive gear to crankshaft splines - well within spec. The 3BII splines were visibly heavily worn. On the 15B-T there is no visible wear whatsoever.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

15B-T stripdown 4

Taking the oil filter bracket off the oil cooler housing, I'm again impressed by how clean the engine is internally.

But taking the oil cooler housing off, there is a very different picture.

Looking at the oil cooler and inside of the housing, there is a thick black crust which has built up over the years that the engine was standing - apparently drained of coolant. Unfortunately on the B engine, the block oil drain is not the lowest point of the cooling circuit - that is the oil cooler chamber. It appears that the vehicle was parked up nose down, jusding by the level of the black deposits. The lighter marks in the opposite direction are most likely from my earlier citric acid flush, when I lifted the front side of the engine up to bleed air out.

But the real 'discovery' came when I was blowing air through the coolant passages. Putting a hose into the small port the RH side of the water pump mounting face, air should blow through to the oil cooler chamber. But there was no connection, nothing at all. By blowing through the 3BII block I confirmed that this connection should exist. Could it be a different casting after all? But then there would be virtually zero coolant flow to the oil cooler. Perhaps a casting fault? Unlikely.

So I knocked out the small bore plug which covers the end of the coolant passage bore from the front of the engine to the oil cooler chamber. Once out, I was able to scrape around with a scribe and dig out a solid deposit of that same black crud which was blocking the coolant passage down from the water pump. All my dismantling is vindicated - had I not found this, it would have been almost impossible to diagnose once the engine is assembled and running and would have meant basically zero oil cooling.

To top it off, I had a couple of genuine bore plugs and was able to plug the engine back up after the coolant line was scraped, wire brushed and blown clean. Great to have that circulation back.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

Oil cooler rebuild

Despite the disgusting thick crust of rust sludge, the stainless steel oil cooler cleaned up perfectly, and the aluminium oil cooler cover was only stained internally. As with the oil pump, I could have used the 3BII oil cooler cover (which has no corrosion on the outside and is visually better looking). But, the 3BII oil cooler cover had quite some internal erosion from coolant (or ore likely water) flow. As for the oil cooler, the later direct injection B engines (11B, 14B and 15B) have a four row oil cooler, while the 3BII in the BJ60 has a three-row oil cooler. So I am sticking with the original 15B-T oil cooler assembly.

The old plugs for the oil cooler bracket bore were rusty and anyway needed to be removed to properly clean the thing, so it got two new plugs as well as two new copper washers.

A new taper plug for the unused oil feed port:

Of course new O-rings and gaskets for the oil cooler:

Finished. In the state I received the engine, there would have been really zero oil cooling. Hopefully the engine was not run in this state for any length of time.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

15B-T stripdown 5

Pulling the injectors. The 15B-T has injector nozzles and bodies which are unique to the engine, and therefore I imagine unavailable from Toyota or Denso (TBC). So it seems prudent to get the injectors serviced to hopefully extend the nozzle life, and if nothing else make sure they are clean and spraying properly. In a pinch I imagine I could use a 14B-T nozzle, though there is no guarantee they are still available. Last resort would be a 14B.

I've seen videos of BMW engines being lifted off their mounts trying to pull injectors out. Thankfully the Japanese are smarter and though they took a lot of tapping free with a hammer and brass drift, they came out without dramas.

All four injector seats came free with the respective injector, so ther was no fishing around to remove them. A blast of compressed air blew the injector bores clean of the residual soot left in there.

All four injectors with leak-off line.

All the tips look like this. I have not touched them but it looks like these will wipe/brush clean. None were oily or otherwise giving concern.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

Camshaft bearings 1

Time to turn the engine upside down to get a good look at all the camshaft bearings. Note that I have the 3BII oil cooler, timing covers, oil seal retainer and manifolds bolted on whilst the engine is in the garage and the 15B-T parts are being cleaned.

#1 bearing is breaking up along the join in the outer metal layer. There are radial scratches where I assume chunks of bearing material were carried round until being washed out by oil flow.

Looking from inside the engine, there is darkening around the oil hole, which I think is oil creeping between the material layers when they start to delaminate.

#2 bearing is also breaking up at the join. Cracks are clearly visible on the front edge of the bearing.

#3 bearing is starting to break up, I assume leading to the polishing of eack edge of the bearing face.

#4 bearing looks OK, but I can't see the join from any angle.

#5 bearing also looks good as far as I can see, but with my finger I can feel there are chunks missing at the join.

I think the whole set of camshaft bearings definitely need changing. I have two sets if bearings on hand, and my installation tool.

What do others think? Has anyone changed a full set of cam beari gs on a 3B? My nightmare would be that the camshaft binds when refitting and I'd need to do further work.

EO

 

[lacalvette]

I did on a 3B. Did not have your tool so wasn't perfect. Needed to adjust them a little after intallation. The plug at the end of the bloc was hard to find.
Make sure you do have the exact right bearing before removing them. It is not easy to align the lubricating oil, needed to make a alignement mark. I thing the sst have a indentation for that?
After that, clearance of each one need to be check and ensure camshaft rotate freely.
With my homemade tool I destroyed my first bearing, the joint is not welded, easy to damage. I now have a tool like you....

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

I did on a 3B. Did not have your tool so wasn't perfect. Needed to adjust them a little after intallation. The plug at the end of the bloc was hard to find.
Make sure you do have the exact right bearing before removing them. It is not easy to align the lubricating oil, needed to make a alignement mark. I thing the sst have a indentation for that?
After that, clearance of each one need to be check and ensure camshaft rotate freely.
With my homemade tool I destroyed my first bearing, the joint is not welded, easy to damage. I now have a tool like you....

Thanks for your reply.

Good points that you make. The 58 mm plug for the later B engines is still available so no issue there. Indeed very wise not to make any assumptions on what the old bearings are, especially on a unicorn engine like this. But I measured the camshaft journals and they are the same as in the 14B 15B-F 15B-FT factory manual. I also placed the new bearings over the camshaft journals and made sure they were correct. Yesterday I prepared them for installation by drawing a line across each bearing, then painting a mark on the block to align them. It will be hard to get them perfectly aligned, even with this preparation.

The adjustments you had to make after installing - was this due to damage on the bearings during install, or do you think that over time you block has moved a bit and the bores were no longer perfectly aligned? How did you take material off the bearings? My plan would be some fine emery paper wrapped around the rubber of the installation tool.

 

[lacalvette]

Adjust, probably because my homemade tool was bad. I think I used emery paper like you said, maybe I just used scotchbrite pad, can't remember.
But there is chance to embeded contaminant in the soft antifriction material... once they are in they can damage journals.
(No flexible honing tool)
I think you will be fine with the proper tool.

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

15B-T Camshaft bearings 2

Preparations for changing the bearings. After thoroughly checking that the 15B-T shares the same bearings as the 3BII, 14B etc (it does; Toyota 11802-56030 or Taiho C048LSTD), I prepared for the operation. Working with the engine in a stand with crank and rods in place is not ideal, but I can at least remove the pushrod lifters. I did ths more to ensure that no debris from the operations falls into them.

I marked my new set of bearings (except #1) with a marker pen...

...then aligned them against the existing bearing and made a paint mark on the block. For the #1 bearing with much easier access, I just made a mark on the front of the block and the edge of the bearing.

Knocked out the 58 mm bore plug from the back of the block.

And get my camshaft bearing tool ready.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

15B-T Camshaft bearings 3

Real time updates here. Removing the bearings was very easy, the only fiddly bit is tightening the tool inside the bearing while it's in the block. Getting the #5 bearing out took some creative thinking as the tool hit the engine stand before the bearing was fully out. I just reversed the bearing carrier (the thing with a red-brown rubber band) to drive it out.

#1 bearing - we've already had a good look at this.

#2 bearing has big chunk missing.

#3 bearing is starting to crumble.

#4 bearing is the least damaged, but to me the darkening indicates that oil is penetrating the bounday between layers and the spalling process is beginning.

#5 bearing has a big, deep chunk missing.

This is the second time I have removed these cam bearings from a block. Now time to try installation for the first time.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

15B-T Camshaft bearings 4

I'm afraid I don't have many good pictures of the process as it's almost impossible with a phone to get a picture of anything interesting. The bearings get knocked in from the front side of the engine, working from the rearmost bearing (#5) to the front. Here's #5 getting knocked in with the tool:

Looking down the tunnel. #5, #4 and #3 bearings in place. If you look carefully, you can see the alignment of the oil holes with the hole in the #2 bore.

Alignment is not easy. The holes in the bearings are a little bigger than the oil holes so there is a bit of tolerance, but once the bearing is set against the bore in the too, the oil hole is not visible at all. I ended up pushing #5 bearing out one more time for a second try, then drove it too far and had to knock it back a bit from the rear bore, which required dismounting the engine from the stand and placing it on blocks on the foor. #1 bearing took three attempts to get right.

I noticed that the interlock of the bearing had been strained slightly with the stress of the interference fit in the bore - I could feel it with my finger. After completing the installation, I put the camshaft in place to see how it felt. I was put some assembly lube on the journals and slid it in, fearing it would bind. But it turned fine, albeit a bit stiffer than I remember it. I think this is partly due to the sticky assembly lube, but I gave it a couple of turns so it would mark the high points of the bearings. Here the shiny high points on #5 bearing are visible.

I was a bit hesitant about using abrasives on the bearings, but a bit of reading reassured me that it's common practice (though that does not mean it's a good practice...). But as long as it does not get hot, I don't see why the abrasive should transfer to the bearign material. A piece of 1000 grit emery, some scrap metal (my old transfer idler gear shaft) and some gaffer tape and I had a big file to gently take down the high points on the interlock.

After a few rubs, I smoothed it with some 1500 grit and my finger, and called it done. The camera no longer focuses on the spot (a good thing I would say) so the picture is a bit soft.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

15B-T Camshaft bearings 5

With #5 bearing finished, I decided to tackle a few more jobs on the rear of the engine which is inaccessible when in the stand. Firstly, I cleaned the old sealant from the end of the bore...

...took a new plug...

...and tapped it in. The back of the engine is strangely rusty. The rear bearing retainer is the old one from the 3BII and is there to keep crap out of the engine while it sits on the stand. '211' is painted on the back surface of the block, and further up it is punched in just below the head gasket surface. I'm pretty sure that this is engine number 211. It was cast in May 1994. I have no idea how many of these engines there might be, I would guess a few hundred, maybe a couple of thousand.

I used a citric acid based rust remover gel to get rid of the rust. Then it was time to scrape the kevlar-like gasket paper off the rear oil seal retainer mounting face. It's now ready to paint.

Lastly, I installed a bearing for the input shaft spigot. All Mega Cruisers were autos so this is the first time it gets a bearing in the end of the crank.

EO

 

[FJBen]

This is what my cam bearings looked like in my 485k 13bt.

I think once you open an engine, just replace stuff if it’s remotely questionable.

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

This is what my cam bearings looked like in my 485k 13bt.

View attachment 3875807


I think once you open an engine, just replace stuff if it’s remotely questionable.

Pretty rough, similar to that which was in my 567k km 3BII. My theory is that #1 bearing takes a particular beating as it gets more pressured oil (2 holes) which may help strip bits of bearing material off once it starts to fail. But maybe it's more mechanical forces due to being closer to the pulley?

From what I can find online your blue block 13B-T uses the later cam bearings of the 3BII/14B and later engines. I'm pretty sure you mentioned that you first bought the older bearing set and that they didn't fit. Does it have solid lifters or roller lifters?

I'm with you on the 'replace everything that might wear' philosophy. Currently thinking if I want to change valve stem seals. It would be a tricky operation and total catastrophe if a valve dropped into a cylinder though.

 

[lacalvette]

I once changed valve stem seals on an gaseline engine, positioned piston TDC, removed spark plug and fill the "hole" with a small string.
I can imagine it could be done with injectors removed?

Edit: I might insert string before positioned piston TDC to make sure valves were "sitting" on the string?

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

I once changed valve stem seals on an gaseline engine, positioned piston TDC, removed spark plug and fill the "hole" with a small string.
I can imagine it could be done with injectors removed?

Edit: I might insert string before positioned piston TDC to make sure valves were "sitting" on the string?

With the piston at TDC I think there is just a mm or two from the valve face to the top of the piston, so I don't think this will be necessary. I would use the brace I have for holding the crank pulley to make sure the engine is 'locked' at TDC while I am doing the swap.

 

[FJBen]

Pretty rough, similar to that which was in my 567k km 3BII. My theory is that #1 bearing takes a particular beating as it gets more pressured oil (2 holes) which may help strip bits of bearing material off once it starts to fail. But maybe it's more mechanical forces due to being closer to the pulley?

From what I can find online your blue block 13B-T uses the later cam bearings of the 3BII/14B and later engines. I'm pretty sure you mentioned that you first bought the older bearing set and that they didn't fit. Does it have solid lifters or roller lifters?

I'm with you on the 'replace everything that might wear' philosophy. Currently thinking if I want to change valve stem seals. It would be a tricky operation and total catastrophe if a valve dropped into a cylinder though.

Yep, I actually ordered 2 sets of cam bearings before taking a chance on the 14b set That fit perfect.

It’s solid lifters on it. It’s interesting that they did a partial change but then I’m assuming realized that were retiring the 13bt so it didn’t make sense to do any other major changes.

I had thought if I ever wanted to upgrade, the 15bft or fte would be a nice upgrade.