Just wanted to share my experience replacing my 2UZ-FE in my 2003 LC100 for anyone thinking of tackling this...
I bought a 2003 LC100 earlier this year, when I test drove it all seemed well. All was not well with the engine... The previous owner badly over heated the original engine and destroyed it. He had a used engine installed. Used engine (engine 2 at this point) turned out to be bad unfortunately, I was able to confirm that the engine was indeed replaced, but was a junk unit. The engine had a minor ticking sound when I got it. Didn't seems like anything, but 8 thousand miles later it was getting louder, not good.
I searched for a replacement engine and found that a Land Cruiser specific 2UZ-FE was a pretty wild range of prices and nothing locally to be found. I decided to search for Tundra and Sequoia engines, and found a 2003 Sequoia engine with 140k for $700 at a local yard, a yard that I have had good experienced with in the past. The yard gave me the engine for $600 since I drove over an hour to get it in Tucson AZ. Very nice, these guys have treated me well in the past, I felt encouraged.
When I got the engine home I pulled off the oil pan and valve covers to give it a close inspection and it was pretty clean. Had pretty heavy varnish inside but no sludge. The cylinder walls had great looking cross hatch pattern, looking from the bottom. The bottom end was tight, the cams looked mint.
Took a full day to pull old engine out, no surprises. Just took engine out without transmission. Was pretty simple, nothing out of the ordinary. From what I had researched on the internet, the oil pan and exhaust manifolds are the only thing different from the LC100 and Sequoia/Tundra. I can confirm that is true. Other than that, everything else appears to be the same.
Took a full day to put in new donor engine and no surprises encountered. Put in a new starter from a local parts store. I got the starter in and buttoned up the loose ends in the morning of day three before I was ready to fire it. All in took me 18 hours of methodical careful work. Also before all this, I did put in a new timing belt. The timing belt on old engine, and bearings where replaced by previous owner only 23k miles before. I used the bearings from the old engine as they were still very smooth and in good shape. They were the good Japanese bearings, the kit put in appears to have been an Aisin kit. A new timing belt from Gates was only $20 so I put that in.
Hit the ignition switch and it fired up almost immediately! Success! I have driven 700 miles and the engine is smooth and very quite, like a sewing machine. I did it's first oil change at 50 miles, working out of a garage, it is hard to keep things clean so wanted to flush out any junk with a very short oil change interval.
I am a happy camper, and this engine seems pretty minty fresh. Ready for Moab next year!
Since replacing the engine a week ago now, I took apart the old engine to see what went wrong. One of the main bearings ended up getting pretty hammered, looks like the engine got oil starved in the past and all the bottom end bearings were noticeable scarred. None of the bearings actually spun, but they were ugly looking for sure.
I bought a 2003 LC100 earlier this year, when I test drove it all seemed well. All was not well with the engine... The previous owner badly over heated the original engine and destroyed it. He had a used engine installed. Used engine (engine 2 at this point) turned out to be bad unfortunately, I was able to confirm that the engine was indeed replaced, but was a junk unit. The engine had a minor ticking sound when I got it. Didn't seems like anything, but 8 thousand miles later it was getting louder, not good.
I searched for a replacement engine and found that a Land Cruiser specific 2UZ-FE was a pretty wild range of prices and nothing locally to be found. I decided to search for Tundra and Sequoia engines, and found a 2003 Sequoia engine with 140k for $700 at a local yard, a yard that I have had good experienced with in the past. The yard gave me the engine for $600 since I drove over an hour to get it in Tucson AZ. Very nice, these guys have treated me well in the past, I felt encouraged.
When I got the engine home I pulled off the oil pan and valve covers to give it a close inspection and it was pretty clean. Had pretty heavy varnish inside but no sludge. The cylinder walls had great looking cross hatch pattern, looking from the bottom. The bottom end was tight, the cams looked mint.
Took a full day to pull old engine out, no surprises. Just took engine out without transmission. Was pretty simple, nothing out of the ordinary. From what I had researched on the internet, the oil pan and exhaust manifolds are the only thing different from the LC100 and Sequoia/Tundra. I can confirm that is true. Other than that, everything else appears to be the same.
Took a full day to put in new donor engine and no surprises encountered. Put in a new starter from a local parts store. I got the starter in and buttoned up the loose ends in the morning of day three before I was ready to fire it. All in took me 18 hours of methodical careful work. Also before all this, I did put in a new timing belt. The timing belt on old engine, and bearings where replaced by previous owner only 23k miles before. I used the bearings from the old engine as they were still very smooth and in good shape. They were the good Japanese bearings, the kit put in appears to have been an Aisin kit. A new timing belt from Gates was only $20 so I put that in.
Hit the ignition switch and it fired up almost immediately! Success! I have driven 700 miles and the engine is smooth and very quite, like a sewing machine. I did it's first oil change at 50 miles, working out of a garage, it is hard to keep things clean so wanted to flush out any junk with a very short oil change interval.
I am a happy camper, and this engine seems pretty minty fresh. Ready for Moab next year!
Since replacing the engine a week ago now, I took apart the old engine to see what went wrong. One of the main bearings ended up getting pretty hammered, looks like the engine got oil starved in the past and all the bottom end bearings were noticeable scarred. None of the bearings actually spun, but they were ugly looking for sure.
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