Big Sert
 

Hello, this is the first post I have made so lemme introduce myself a little bit. I’m from north Alabama and bought a 96 limited with 184k on the clock a while back. When buying it I was just gonna drive it hunting to keep my truck outta the woods. Well after driving it back and forth to work a few times i fell in love with it and now would rather drive it than my truck. I’ve not had a minutes trouble out of it until A couple weeks ago, I had got some stuff to do a tune up on it. Get all the fluids changed and start doing spark plugs. Get to the last one #6 cylinder, it’s tough coming out. When I finally get it out I see it’s been repaired by the PO with some type of cheap insert. I was at work so I had to do something to get home. I run to the local parts place and they had a insert that matched up to the one that come out. I put it in and all was good. It held for ~200 miles and on the way to work Monday morning it blew out, destroying the coil pack. So now I have a question. I’ve got 98 wrecked runner with 230k that’s supposed to run good but has been sitting for 3 years prior to me getting it. Do I try to get that one going and swap motors or do I order the big Sert repair kit and try that? I’m just a broke plumber that’s trying to get my T4r back breathing. Also would anyone happen to have a big Sert kit that I could buy or rent from? Thanks in advance.

Jeremy

This is a job you may want to pay to have done at a place that has done this before. I would see if there is a machine shop that would do it in the the 4runner. I you do it and make it so it can not be repaired by making the whole to large then the head has to come off or maybe even replaced so at that point might as well pull the other head and take care of it too.:photo:

In my opinion, I'd do it right. Ie. Pull the head off and swap it with another. I guess ideal gas is a head that is coming off a running engine.

My 5VZ had the same problem as you. It's on cylinder 1 though. Way easier to fix if I wanna go the time sert way. But luckily for me it's been 2k miles and hasn't blown out. And I reused the insert in there too.

I'm keeping an eye out though for a good donor head. Might be worth looking around at junkyards for fresh runners showing up.

But maybe has someone here has experience with doing time serts that can speak to their longevity. To me it's a band aid solution. Swapping it cures it but leaves you open to other problems so you gotta know what your doing

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Do you know if the head from his wrecked '98 that he mentioned will fit on his '96? I would imagine that it does.

Thanks for the replies. I’m going to try to get the 98 running and check it over and if all goes good pull it and swap it into my 96. I’m pretty handy with a wrench and my boss has worked on trucks his whole life just not yota’s. Ideally the 98 motor will be good and I swap em, then I could take my time and find a good head or get mine repaired right.

If the current motor Ran fine otherwise don't goof around swapping motors!

Just as others said get it done Professionally. Mine blew out a plug and destroyed the coil too. That was 175,000 miles ago, still running fine with a low cost solution. That was a no brainer to me, don't need a new head or all that labor of a swap out. Geesh. :cowboy:

how much did it run you to get that done? was it done by dealership? id bee interested if they warrantied the work lol

I don’t know of anyone around north Alabama that would do that with the head on. Anybody got any ideas. I’m fairly confident I could do the big Sert repair if it would fix the problem. Just didn’t wanna spend the $350 plus for the tool if y’all didn’t think it would hold. I’ve asked around here and nobody has one that I’ve found yet.

If you have to take the head off to repair it then I would just replace the head. Left and right heads are interchangeable for what it's worth.

If you have good access to that cylinder's plug, you can do this yourself. There is a rental kit available, and installation is pretty straightforward.

aircooled.net tool rental

The insert itself is sold separately from the rental. Much cheaper than buying a one-use tool for hundreds. And, the Aircooled folks are very friendly.

If you take oneside off the other off too. The valves are most likely out of spec. If you go for another engine before u put it in check the valve lash.:fishing:

I’ve seen that but also seen where they only have the regular version and it says we need the extended version. I think I could make it work with some sockets and extensions. Has anybody ever messed with the time Serts and can confirm it can be done with the regular version? Thanks

Anybody? Before i just rent it and try

I would get the right set of tools for the job...you dont wanna wanna mess that up.

what also sucks is that your working on the worst cylinder to a job like this. Get the right stuff, and make room for the repair.

Let me know how it goes for ya. It may inspire me to do mine lol but mine aint blown out yet