Motor Mount/Frame Failure

[BlairB]

Here is a post I made on Toyota120, just thought I would post it up here as well....



Well it looks like my part out has hit a delay. I was driving home recently after a little wheeling and I heard my fan hitting the fan shroud, when I popped the hood and looked at the engine something looked odd, the plastic engine cover was actually resting on the fan shroud. I ended up dealing with the noise a few days until I was able to take it to the dealer, I actually was able to move the fan shroud around and cause the noise to stop, so I figured I somehow tweaked the shroud while wheeling.

I took then took it to the dealer and got a call back a day later and told me that my motor mount has “sunk” into the frame. Basically on the driver side the lower part of the mount punched through the actual frame. The dealer told me that my option was frame replacement, at the cost of $12,000 with a wait of 4-6 weeks for the frame to arrive from Japan.

After some research I found out that this is a pretty common problem on the Tacomas, which share the same frame design as our 4Runners. I also found a few FJ issues mentioned, but they were few and far between. My truck has been inspected by a few different regional reps and they deemed it to be abuse and non warrantable, which is clearly understandable considering this is not a defect nor something that would occur unless you drove your truck very hard, but rather just a weak point. It looks like in every case that I have found it was the driver side that gave out.

Here are some threads on the Tacoma cases…

05 Tcoma Motor Mount/Frame Failure List - TTORA Forum
05 Tacoma Motor Mount (Update) - Toyota Forums :: Toyota Nation
Cracked Frame 2005 Taco - TTORA Forum
'05 Motor Mounts Failed/Failing - Tacoma World Forums
Motor Mount Ripped From Frame... - Toyota Forums :: Toyota Nation

Here are threads on the FJ case...

http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/misc-technical-discussion/74262-i-broke-my-frame.html
http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/misc-technical-discussion/76161-broken-frame-saga.html

It looks like most guys actually just lift the engine back into place, which pops the motor mount into the correct place, reweld it and some add extra gusseting. My truck is currently at DMZ Fab, a SoCal off road race/fab shop who did a lot of repairs on the TTORA guys trucks, and they are repairing, reenforcing and gusseting the motor mounts/frame, its not cheap but will be far less than $12,000!! I can weld, but for something like this, I would much rather leave it to the professionals.

Here is a pic of the what the damage looks like (not my truck but same thing) as well as the work done by DMZ.

It is interesting that I had this failure with only 42,000 miles. I do wheel my truck hard, but no harder than anyone else (cough cough Drew and Andries) .

It looks in the mean time my part out will be stopped (which I am sort of happy about) and also I will probably just stick with my 4Runner, rather than switching to a Land Cruiser 80.

You have to pay to play.

 

[gptoy96]

Wow, I was hoping our trucks were immune to this. I had seen the postings about Tacoma's but figured it had something to do with because they were not built in Japan (same reasoning as why Tacoma's frames were rusting but the 4Runners were not).

Glad to hear you're getting it fixed, sorry to hear that you have to deal with it in the first place.

Keep us up to date with how it turns out.

 

[Lowpro]

Man that sucks ass!


Off Topic a bit: My wife and I had a 2003 Honda Accord with about 40k miles when we found out that 2 of the engine mounts were cracked. The mechanics said that they had never seen that before. Weird! It was covered under warranty. Now she drives a '08 T4R Limited 4x4 instead. :banana:

Hope it all works out for you.

 

[Uneek]

Off Topic a bit: My wife and I had a 2003 Honda Accord with about 40k miles when we found out that 2 of the engine mounts were cracked. The mechanics said that they had never seen that before. Weird! It was covered under warranty.

IIRC, in one the Tacoma cases on ToyotaNation, the member's Tacoma wasn't covered by Toyota. Toyota says the damage was a result of the truck being in a rear-end collision. Someone hit the Tacoma from behind--the Tacoma didn't have front end damage.

 

[Uneek]

The dealer told me that my option was frame replacement, at the cost of $12,000 with a wait of 4-6 weeks for the frame to arrive from Japan.

Wow... I think I saw somewhere the Tacoma's Frame is about $3000-3500. So that leaves $9000 for labor, at $70/hr, it's 128.5 hrs (or 16 days) to swap everything off the old frame over to the new. :wow:

Did you check to see if insurance would cover it?

 

[BlairB]

Wow, I was hoping our trucks were immune to this. I had seen the postings about Tacoma's but figured it had something to do with because they were not built in Japan (same reasoning as why Tacoma's frames were rusting but the 4Runners were not).

Glad to hear you're getting it fixed, sorry to hear that you have to deal with it in the first place.

Keep us up to date with how it turns out.

I will be getting the truck back tomorrow, so I will try to snap some pics of the fix.

The tacoma issue was due to a vendor not properly coating the frame (Dana Corp, I believe) and this stems more from the design and frame thickness. Hopefully this is not a widespread issue, it is definitely related to how hard I wheel my truck.

Man that sucks ass!


Off Topic a bit: My wife and I had a 2003 Honda Accord with about 40k miles when we found out that 2 of the engine mounts were cracked. The mechanics said that they had never seen that before. Weird! It was covered under warranty. Now she drives a '08 T4R Limited 4x4 instead. :banana:

Hope it all works out for you.

Yeah I have yet to be able to find another case of it happening on a 4Runner, I guess I was the lucky one! :crybaby:

IIRC, in one the Tacoma cases on ToyotaNation, the member's Tacoma wasn't covered by Toyota. Toyota says the damage was a result of the truck being in a rear-end collision. Someone hit the Tacoma from behind--the Tacoma didn't have front end damage.

Mine was not covered b/c abuse, the skids were really beat up, there were marks on the inner fender from the tires rubbing etc...

I am not arguing that it should be covered under warranty, it is a weak point on the vehicle, but that is different from a manufacturing defect. I understand why they wouldn't cover it

Wow... I think I saw somewhere the Tacoma's Frame is about $3000-3500. So that leaves $9000 for labor, at $70/hr, it's 128.5 hrs (or 16 days) to swap everything off the old frame over to the new. :wow:

Did you check to see if insurance would cover it?

The price of the frame was about $5800, and that is getting some serious parts discounts, and I was looking at 60 hrs of labor at $98/hr.

 

[BlairB]

Just another update, I got the truck back from DMZ today, I checked out their welds quickly and they do great work. It was a wonderful shop to work with and I highly recommend them. I just stood there drooling over some of the trucks that they were currently building.

It ended up being slightly more than the initial estimate as the passenger side had also began to cave in, but in total is was only $750, which was reasonable. It took them less than 24 hrs from when the vehicle arrived at their shop to have the truck fixed and ready to go. I also picked up and installed my newest mod today, a Bajarack with a light cage.

I got it back and quickly made it topless....

and a few short hours later....

 

[CJ3Flyr]

Hate you had the frame issue...


I like the roof!:bigok:


:wtf: are you doing? Did I get it right? Your leaving us for an IS? Are you off of the IS thing for now? I get the same way. ADD is hard on the wallet for sure. Hope you stay in the T4R community

 

[BlairB]

Hate you had the frame issue...


I like the roof!:bigok:


:wtf: are you doing? Did I get it right? Your leaving us for an IS? Are you off of the IS thing for now? I get the same way. ADD is hard on the wallet for sure. Hope you stay in the T4R community

Nope, I am no longer leaving! I will be here for some time, I actually just bought out the lease on my 4Runner this week! :bigok:

I am hoping I do not go too mod crazy now that the truck is now mine, rather than a lease vehicle....

 

[scottm]

Thanks for the heads-up, not that I'll ever wheel mine, but good to know where the weak points are. I'm sure your engine mounts are plenty tough now, so you'll have to find something else to break! An 80 def wouldn't have caved like that, but they're getting so old I couldn't trust they won't break somewhere expensive, so now I'm here. Why not a 100 for the abuse you give?

 

[gptoy96]

Great to hear you're all back together again and you're not leaving us anymore!

Truck looks smokin! Hopefully you don't find any more weak points and just get to enjoy wheeling/modding.

Enjoy!

 

[BlairB]

Thanks for the heads-up, not that I'll ever wheel mine, but good to know where the weak points are. I'm sure your engine mounts are plenty tough now, so you'll have to find something else to break! An 80 def wouldn't have caved like that, but they're getting so old I couldn't trust they won't break somewhere expensive, so now I'm here. Why not a 100 for the abuse you give?

I am just shocked that the weak point was actually the frame, you would think something else would give first. I guess it is just a sign that the rest of our trucks are pretty damn strong!

I have debated 100's as well, but there are less parts available and they are quite a bit more money. I definitely agree with the risks associated with an old LC, I just have a special place in my hear for older ones not even sure why. I would love to get a 60, but I like being able to go faster than 50mph flat out . I have considered 62's as well, just never found the right one.

Great to hear you're all back together again and you're not leaving us anymore!

Truck looks smokin! Hopefully you don't find any more weak points and just get to enjoy wheeling/modding.

Enjoy!

Thanks for the compliments, it is a work in progress. I am glad I can hit the trails again too and I hope to not discover any other weak points on the truck. My fingers will be crossed!

 

[Will_4R]

Sorry to hear you had to go through that, but glad you solved the problem for a reasonable price. How hard were you wheeling to do that? Hopefully it was pretty extreme.

 

[scottm]

I have debated 100's as well, but there are less parts available and they are quite a bit more money. I definitely agree with the risks associated with an old LC, I just have a special place in my hear for older ones not even sure why. I would love to get a 60, but I like being able to go faster than 50mph flat out . I have considered 62's as well, just never found the right one.

Agreed on the $, my wife's 100 is twice the $ of my 4R, but more solidly built for not much more size and weight. You really don't need to do many parts to have a real trail rig: diff drop, OME lift, tires, maybe a bumper and sliders. There are good, low mileage 80s with lockers out there for not much $. If I wheeled my daily-driver hard, there'd be no other option for me.

I'm in training in Dallas (FW) for a month, there's a beautiful stock 62 that parks outside the academy every day, drool. It's an easy swap to a small-block, but this one looks cherry.

 

[eskimochaos]

Agreed on the $, my wife's 100 is twice the $ of my 4R, but more solidly built for not much more size and weight. You really don't need to do many parts to have a real trail rig: diff drop, OME lift, tires, maybe a bumper and sliders. There are good, low mileage 80s with lockers out there for not much $. If I wheeled my daily-driver hard, there'd be no other option for me.

I'm in training in Dallas (FW) for a month, there's a beautiful stock 62 that parks outside the academy every day, drool. It's an easy swap to a small-block, but this one looks cherry.

This is very surprising. The FJC failed in nearly the exact same spot. What do you think caused this? Any isolated incident....after your cruise through the desert at night with Josh where you hit that massive bump?

scottm, the 100 is over 1000 pounds heavier than the 4R and only marginally bigger - its evident when you look underneath.

 

[BlairB]

This is very surprising. The FJC failed in nearly the exact same spot. What do you think caused this? Any isolated incident....after your cruise through the desert at night with Josh where you hit that massive bump?

scottm, the 100 is over 1000 pounds heavier than the 4R and only marginally bigger - its evident when you look underneath.

It is definitely caused by hard bottoming out of the suspension, just like bumps in that video. It is also not something that happens after one bump, my truck has been wheeled hard for years now.

The most interesting part to me is that after in happened in all those Tacomas (same frame design as the FJ and 4Runner) they redesigned/reenforced the motor mount, but on the FJ and 4Runner they did not do the same redesign, and left the old, weaker design in place.

 

[>MR2turbo4evr<]

Sorry to hear about your problem. Thankfully you got it fixed for a decent price.

I don't want to sidetrack this thread, but do you guys know if the V8 4Runners have the same issue? Or do they use different engines mounts (or mounts in different places)?