Poll-Have you had the dreaded cam tower leak? (1 Viewer)

[TheComedian]

Never heard of this so no. Sounds like it isn’t a problem at the mighty diesel engines?

 

[bryson]

Is this the cam tower leak support group? My passenger side went from a whiff of hot oil to dripping on the wheel well

My 2008 has leaked for 30k+ miles but it has never gotten any worse than just making the head grimey. If you're leaking enough to be dripping in the wheel well, I'd suspect something else might be leaking. It's hard for me to imagine a big leak coming from the head/tower interface without there being other issues.

 

[Acrad]

Never heard of this so no. Sounds like it isn’t a problem at the mighty diesel engines?

You will see quite a number of these for Tundras

 

[binhsterbinh]

To help you out a bit on why it cost so much, it’s a lot of work, but it’s far from a rebuild.

Long story short, you have to take the all the accessories off the front of the motor, that’s where the water pump removal comes from along with anything else. Then you have room and the clearance to take off the timing chain cover. You don’t take your timing chain off. Then you have the stuff out of the way to take the valve train off, so that’s the cam towers and everything above it.

Clean up the mating surfaces absolutely spotless and use Toyota FPIK to seal it back up. Then put everything back on.

It’s a time consuming job, and your paying a guy at a Toyota for about 20 hours of work at $100-120/hour rates, plus all the replacement o-rings and premade gaskets. While the water pump is off and out, they are pretty cheap so I put a new one on.

As the story goes, some very light oil got on the matting surfaces at the factory (like wd-40 light), and that never let the gasket material adhere very good. Yeah it’s Toyota’s fault, but 3 years 36,000 miles is all you get unless you pay for more. $3000 is a good price for the work.

I did the job myself over two weekends and it cost me $410. It’s not hard, it’s simple unbolting. No timing to adjust or anything like that, but unless you are a proven guy that can clean and gasket things and don’t have leaks afterward, I’d let someone else do it.

There really is no way around this, outside of
1) deal with it and keep your oil topped off
2) fix it
3) play chemist inside your motor with some engine sealer that probably work work and mess with other commenters that it didn’t need to (not my recommendation for an expensive 200, but blue devil stuff is legit)

Sorry for being more blunt, I’m normally trying to give more options to people, but this is really a black and white issue. If you have leaks, Toyota isn’t paying for it outside of warranty, it’s a lot of work, and you have to decide if your going to pay money, or pay attention to your oil level more often then the normal every month.

I’m going to be tackling this job to address the Timing Chain Cover leak on 2013 LX 570 at 135k. Planning to do Valve cover gaskets as well since the valve covers have to be loosened to remove timing cover. Valve Covers aren’t leaking at moment though. Cam area appears to be dry as well, so not planning to touch it.

Once radiator and fan is out, does the A/C Condenser coil need to come out as well to gain access to front to perform this timing chain cover reseal job?
If so, I’ll need vacuum A/C system and recharge with R134A.

 

[bloc]

does the A/C Condenser coil need to come out as well to gain access to front to perform this timing chain cover reseal job?

No, but removing the radiator will help a lot.