Need rebuilt or new 1FZ for 97 Cruiser

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F

ffahey

10 Year 15 Year
Joined
Feb 26, 2006
Threads
4
Messages
11
Location
Chicago
Help. Any guidance would be appreciated. I have done a search and all the info is 2 or three years old. My 97 with 165 k miles threw a head a day after the head gasket was replaced. Of course the mechanic says he is blameless. I am skeptical. My family has put on hearly 700k miles on cruisers without an engine incident. I need a good source for a quality rebuilt 1fz. My neighborhood highschool is chomping at the bit to install the engine at no cost(a savings of $3400-4000). Would the effort be to difficult for a group of supervised highschool seniors? Do i need a short block or the long block? We have a shortage of cruiser expertise in the midwest.

The vehicle has new rubber, OME lift, ARB bumpers, and the body is in great shape. I can't justify spending 8000-900, but 4000 is doable. Any guidance or help would be appreciated.
 
Explain "Threw a head". Heads don't get thrown, rods get thrown. What exactly happened? Your mechanic had the head out, now it's bad. I would think he is responsible and hoping to avoid the cost of his liability. For me personally, I wouldn't let highschool doofus kids (I have 2 and know!) touch it, unless it's Gumby and his crew.

If just the head is cracked, It would be cheaper to just get a replacement head. Dan quoted a long block somewhere near $12k.
 
Did the mechanic have the crank pully off? If the nut on the crank pully is not properly torqued, you can lose the drive for both the oil pump and the power steering pump.
 
FF,

Obviously your call, but I can tell you that I would not allow someone to force my family budget to cough up thousands of dollars due to his mistake. Mechanics and shops carry liability insurance and I am not litigious but would not hesitate to sue if the evidence pointed to his mistake.

I'm not a mechanic, but have personally done 3 head gasket replacements in the last 3 months and this sounds like a huge screwup that is his fault that would not be difficult to verify.

Also, there are no rods to throw on this engine - it's an overhead cam. If you type out the parts off your bill so we can see what was disassembled, it may be easy for us to identify what was done wrong. With that information (there are lots of talented folks here who know this engine inside and out), you may be able to go to him and he'll quickly realize you're getting quality, accurate inside information as to his error and he may make this right. I don't know how you found this list, but the people here are likely the most knowledgable 80 people in the US. Whether making it right is simply refunding your $$$ for the head gasket replacement, or completely repairing the engine - who knows?

Anyhow, more details on how the engine ran the day you picked it up, the bill items, and what happened regarding the sound would help. I have my theories but you need to provide info.
 
Dont be a push over! MAKE him fix it if you think he is at fault!
 
IdahoDoug said:
Also, there are no rods to throw on this engine - it's an overhead cam..
Click to expand...

Overhead cam so no pushrods, but doesn't "throwing a rod" generally mean a (piston) connecting rod?

Agreed that more info is needed on what exactly took place.

Curtis
 
Part break down on bill prior to breakdown

I picked up the truck on Friday afternoon, Sunday I was75 miles from home when I lost power and had to pull to the side of the Indiana toll road. Had it towed to a dealer in South Bend. The dealer said "threw a rod." Sounds like a hammer inside the engine. Said no oil pressure, but power was going to the pump.

Parts:

Distributor Cap 17.99
Distributor rotor 6.51
Spark plug wire set 121.77
pcv valve 4.09
Spark plugs(6) 25.98
Cylinder head gasket set 233.23
Thermostat 16.52
pcv valve grommet 4.17
Gasket Sealer 36.45
pcv hose 11.53
Breather hose 15.24
V-drive belt 11.20
Serpentine belt 25.06
Total 594.57

Labor:

Runs rough. Check Engine light on. Engine diagnostic test, check codes 126.90
Replace spark plugs, distrubutor capr and rotor, spark plug wires and pcv valve. 169.20

Car started overheating on test drive. Check and locate cylinder head gasket problem. Remove cylinder head and attached parts for machine shop work to test head and refit. 1,099.80

Cylinder head service. 150

Total labor: 1630.00


What are the V-drive and serpentine belts? Could they have something to do with the problem?


Thanks in advance for the help. I am clueless when it comes to matters of internal combustion.
 
Last edited:
Gumby

FF,

Are you talking about Gumby's high school class? If so you can't get a better deal anywhere, period. Gumby is one fine mechanic and hell of a gentlemen. Pm if you need more info. You are one lucky guy to be in his area. He went and inspected a 80 for me and then did the whole front axle pm, along with fluids, etc. Gumby is THE MAN....

Grouseman
 
Yeah, that looks like a pretty standard head gasket service list. So, no "oil pan gasket, etc" that would indicate he took off the oil pan for some reason and could have screwed something up THAT way.

Now we have a quandry. You don't have enough mechanical knowledge/info to judge what's wrong with the engine and it's at a dealer that's clueless as well. And the mechanic that did the HG is somewhere else near Chicago.

Here's my take. I cannot conceive what would cause "zero oil pressure" with a full engine of oil. Let's consider that the Toyota dealership simply started the engine, heard the knock and shut it down. They concluded "zero oil pressure" because they don't want to run the engine. They also concluded "threw a rod" because someone there's just tossing that out because in high school they once heard the expression used around an engine with a severe knock. If your engine broke a CONNECTING rod, then you'd likely have oil leaking out the bottom of the pan and/or side of the block from the con rod being driven through it at freeway speeds, so I'm going to say this is BS. If you were driving along and the connecting rod broke, you'd have heard and felt an incredible racket and their would have been pieces of the engine and oil bouncing down the freeway.

Here's what we do know:
A mechanic took off the head and replaced it.
The engine ran for a couple hours and lost power as well as developed a knock.
The engine is full of oil.
You have a loud knock in the engine.

Here's my guesses:

The mechanic put a crap Fram or other filter on it and it internally failed and caused oil starvation.
The mechanic dropped something down the large rectangular opening the timing chain goes down during his work and it finally jiggled into position and took out the oil pump, which is at the bottom of the timing chain.
The mechanic put your engine all together and mistakenly started it without oil, damaging the oil pump which now has failed.
The mechanic turned your engine the wrong direction (Rick here on this list did the same thing) and broke the timing chain tensioner guide. Where Rick caught it and replace it, this guy did not. The timing chain guide eventually cratered, taking out the oil pump at the bottom of the timing chain either with pieces or because the timing chain developed huge slack when it came apart and started slapping the oil pump silly.

The way to know if this happened would be to spend a couple hours and pull the valve cover off. At that point, you can physically see the timing chain guides and feel the timing chain and also see various other suspect things like the timing gear (there are two notches in it and it can be put on wrong) and the various bolts there that could have fallen down into the oil pump gear drive area.

Unfortunately I don't know if you have that ability, if you'll get the cooperation of a Toyota dealer hungry for a multi thousand dollar job, or your mechanic in looking at this stuff. The more I think about it, the more this timing chain guide looms largest as the suspect. Rick (LandTank) may be able to shed more light on this as he knows the engine and has been down there as well.

DougM
 
Couple more thoughts. The engine may lose power if the guide failed and tension on the chain was reduced - changing both valve and ignition timing. So this fits a bit.

The clunk could be anything, but a loose timing chain could make a racket. But getting the valve cover off would reveal a lot here. If you can get it home, it's literally a couple hours work and then you could invite your mechanic over for a look at chunks of timing chain tensioner.

Draining the oil (2 gallons) through a screen might also provide you with plastic chunks of tensioner. That would take only minutes, but again I would NOT trust the dealer to do this simply because they could destroy the evidence by deciding instead to simply watch the oil drain for chunks rather than taking the time/mess to actually make it go through a screen. A conscientious mechanic would do this, just that it's too important (perhaps) for a Service Manager to tell a pimple faced oil change guy (lowest man on the totem pole at any dealership) to do it.

DougM
 
Is it possible that a valve could be contacting the piston? If the timing chain was improperly installed or the guide broken (or worn) so the chain jumped, the valvetrain could be timed completely wrong, leading towards a catastrophic failure. This does not explain the report of no oil pressure, however, it would be interestng to note if this was, in fact, the case.

Please report back.
 
It also doesn't explain why the engine ran normally for a couple hours. I can't recall right off if this is an interference engine. Taking the valve cover off gets you right to spark plugs as well, so you could see if the valves and pistons contacted because there'd be broken parts in the cylinder and spark plug damage.

To me, if (and it's still an if) there's truly no oil pressure then the only way I can conceive this happening is oil pump damage. If there's oil pump damage soon after the head was off, I'd suspect physical damage from something dropped onto the oil pump gears from above - coincidentally there's a large opening above them when head work is performed. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I was EXTRA careful carring tools, sockets, bolts and such around the engine when that yawning opening was exposed.

DougM
 
Talk to the owner of the dealership it is at. PRINT this thread and make him READ IT. Tell him you want an autopsy with detailed notes of what he finds. IF he sees a fault in the prior installation as is most likey, get the dealer to fix and sue.

AND NEXT TIME get Dougs Video!
 
Thank you

I know more now than I did before. I agree a post mortem is needed before I make a decision on what is needed. I would hate to order a crate engine only to find out the solution was far simpler.
 
Did you notice extra noise when you originally fired her up? Was there a rattle or "loose" metallic sound? This could indicate if the tensioner was broken before you left the lot.

While its impossible to diagnose over a forum, I wonder if also a poor HG job or incorrectly tightened head could cause water to break through the HG into the cylinder, causing the engine to try to hydro-lock. While this might be far fetched, it is possible that once your engine heated up and pressure developed in your cooling system that water was pushed in to your cylinder. Upon repeated compression the rod might have bent. Did you notice any white smoke steam coming from your truck beforehand, aside from perhaps running it on a cold morning?

A mechanic with any amount of integrity will genuinely look at the possibilites that his work might have something, at least in part, to do with an engine failure - especially since it happened within a couple hours or so from pick up. If this were my story, I'd give the mechanic a call and let him know the facts. Give him an opportunity to open up the truck without laying blame. If the failure is coincidental and his work is unrelated to the problem, he's going to feel good about his work, plus he'll get some more business out of you. If he finds his work is at least partly to blame, it is MUCH easier to hold him to account compared to having another mechanic discover this. In any case, it sounds like you wouldn't want to run the engine even for a few seconds to hear where the noise is, so I'd be inclined to pull the oil pan (seeing that a mechanic said you threw a rod). I'd be there when the mechanic opens it up. I'd have him inspect the rod caps and check the oil pump. If nothing shows I'd pull the spark plugs and rotate the engine by hand to check for interference between valves and pistons.

Check back, please ...
 
Just another data-point, I've throw a rod in 2 motors, one in a 40 and I don't wanna talk about the other one ($$$ german automobile). Pretty much grenades the motor in my experience. A fairly strong and substantial piece of metal winging around unhinged at say, 4000 revolutions per minute will cause a lot of damage. Stuff you will notice. Stuff like big expensive holes in the case and whole oil pans flying off at speed.

More info. is needed...drop the pan and see what little bits are down there...
 
Last car I saw with a thrown rod you could look through the hole in the case and see the crank!!!
 
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