[JBurt]

That Tesa's stuff looks great. I couldn't find any locally and wanted the car back up soon so I just went with 3m 33. That liquid electrical tape was pretty cool. Thanks for the tip Charlie.

Loom and wires repaired.





I couldn't find any clips that the loom was supposed to go into, so it is now ziptied to the oil line. Not a lot of clearance for the belt, but it should work.



Thanks for all the advice. It's running like a champ again.

[JBurt]

So I finally got around to replacing my horrendously bad valve cover gaskets. They've probably leaked since I bought the car, but not bad.

Well, several 10's of thousands of 'not bad' miles adds up and everything was covered in oil residue. Free rust proofing right?

The job wasn't that bad. I went through a few write ups and also Tim's excellent video. I finally got the wood shop stuff moved around to get the 4runner in the air conditioned garage (it's already in the 90's here). It's been several years since a car's been in there.
2023-04-24_04-39-12 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

Everything looks okay. Not fantastic, but for 284k I'm okay with it. No real sludge to speak of. Not the cleanest, but also far from the dirtiest. I guess I can run some cleaner. My normal OCI is 5000 miles with Mobil 1 or Castrol full synthetic. I'm embarrassed by how much dirty oil is everywhere.

2023-04-24_04-01-58 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

The only hiccup was the wiring harness crumbling to dust. I followed tim's suggestion by wraping it in ducting tape, but there was too much oil for it to stick to anything. I was able to degrease it pretty easy, but it broke some in the process. Then when I removed the valve cover it really just disintegrated. I guess the desert heat is extra hard on those? Who knows. The bad part was plastic bits falling into the valve train. I think I got all of them except 1, which fell down below the exhaust cam gear on the drivers side. Couldn't get it to focus, but I circled the plastic bit in red.

2023-04-24_04-01-42 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

I think I need to remove the cam to get it out. Ugh. I think since it's the exhaust cam, and not connected to the timing belt, I can just undo 8 bolts and take it out, making sure to mark which teeth are engaged to the intake cam. Any thoughts on this problem?

Should I just suck it up and remove both cams and do the timing belt too? That job should probably be done too, but If I can avoid doing both at the same time, I wouldn't mind.

Thanks everyone.

[brillo_76]

It's valve checking adjustment time, too. 250k to 300k miles.

Sent from my SM-A536V using Tapatalk

[JBurt]

Ear forceps are apparently a thing, and they worked great!

I tried lots of different things, but the only thing that fit was a drinking straw (diameter of ~7mm). I taped one into the shop vac but it didn't have enough suction to get it out. Enter the ear forceps.

2023-05-02_10-29-27 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

My cheap amazon boroscope showed there was one more piece

2023-05-02_10-29-54 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

But the forceps got that too! $15 well spent.

2023-05-02_10-30-12 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr


I couldn't tell if there was one more very tiny piece, so I used the straw/shopvac and then it looked pretty clean. If there is anything else, I can't see it, and it has fallen down the passage, hopefully to the pan, and hopefully it'll come out on the next oil change.

Now I can move on with the other parts of the job.

[JBurt]

I just went over the whole process for checking valve clearance. I wish I hadn't seen that. I guess its time to pull out the feeler gauges.

[habanero]

Nice work on the plastic bits. C'mon good valve clearance numbers

[JBurt]

The 4runner was down for about a month, but it's working great now.

Valve clearances were not too bad. I forgot to take a picture of where I wrote them down, but all intake valves were in spec, and only one exhaust valve was in spec, and the worst was .019 inches. I used Timmy's video and spreadsheet, got a micrometer, figured out what shims I needed and ordered 8 of them. $12 a piece, but they worked. The rest I could rearrange. I spend all that effort getting forceps to not remove the exhaust cams and wound up removing them anyways. Oh well.

The old spark tube seals were definitely shot
2023-07-03_11-09-31 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

I put in new plugs and wires. The old ones didn't look too bad
2023-07-21_10-47-07 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

Everything was a gross oily mess. It took a long time to clean everything, and I didn't get it perfect, but much better.

Before:
2023-07-03_11-06-48 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

After:
2023-07-03_11-07-58 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

New valves in.
2023-08-14_11-03-11 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr


My wiring harness plastic completely disintegrated when touched, even with tape on it. I removed it completely and wrapped the wires in silicone rescue tape and then in a loom. I found the procedure in this thread. I used black tape though. I've got a Prius, and orange to me means high voltage wires.

Solution to Brittle Wiring Harness Cover Under Plenum

It turned out okay.
2023-07-03_11-09-45 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

2023-07-03_11-09-56 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

Then I replaced as many vacuum hoses as I could find. Put in a new PCV valve and hose, stuck a new air tube on it, new air filter and changed the oil an filter.

After being down for 6ish weeks it fired right up and drove on a 300 mile trip.

However, I was still throwing codes for misfires on cylinders 1 and 2, which were the super oily ones. I wasn't too happy. I thought maybe the injectors were bad, so I ran some lucas through the system and the codes went away.

I'm almost due for a timing belt, so I can send the injectors in when I take it apart for that.

[ibob4tacoz]

Man, I thought the weeping VCG in my BMW was bad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much build-up in my life lol