My 1997 SR5 build and repair thread

It's a bad head gasket. It had water vapor much longer this time with the cap that holds pressure. And it smelled like antifreeze to.


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I'm prepping to have spare heads gone over and replace the head gaskets. Started the process of removing the heads from the spare engine this afternoon before work. Today I'll also order the head replacement kit from YotaShop.


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I've only had an hour to hour and a half the last 2 days to work on removing the heads from the engine I pulled out of this rig when I first bought it.

There was moisture inside the engine. The intake cams both have some surface rust. Fortunately the rust is not on the cam lobes top but the portion that never touches the valve shim.

I'll give my engine guy the cams he thinks he can clean them up and polish up surface rust on the ware surfaces. If he can't I'll end up using the cams out of the engine that's in the 4Runner now.


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Heads are off spare engine. Can you guess which cylinder had the head gasket leak?
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The intake cam rust is not repairable. So I'm out a set of intake cams. So much for having a complete set of heads fully assembled and shimmed and ready to go......

May as well pull the Toy into the garage and start prepping cause I'll need the intake cams out of my rig to complete this task.

YotaShop's head replacement kit arrived yesterday. 3 days from the west coast to the east coast. Not bad. Kit-1020.


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At least you've got intake cams. That's a pretty clean cylinder you've got there.



Very true!

Edit: That engine was so carboned up. Either the PCV was bad or that engine had major blow bye.


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And so it begins. Drinking beer and plugging away at getting down to the bare block. I can't stand working with antifreeze and how sticky it makes my hands. I'd rather be grease from finger tips to shoulders than deal with antifreeze.
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She is giving me that look, so I'm done for the day.

Pull the rad, pull the harness of the ECU and lay it over the drivers fender, pull intake, remove the exhaust studs from the heads......two or so more hours and heads will be off.


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I was thinking about doing the intake valve mod to these heads and the Singhs groove like I did to my Saturn when I replaced its head. But I'm on the shelf. This is what the intake valves would look like.
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And what it would look like in the head.


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I managed to get the pin In the tensioner. Boy, did that save me a lot of time!

Edit: any time that I saved with that pin I lost taking off the drivers side heat shield on the exhaust manifold. It literally took 40 minutes for 3 little nuts.


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Today I pulled the engine harness out of the glove box and draped it over the drivers side fender.

I also removed the heater hose in preps to remove the intake. It looks like the heater valve is getting replaced. It don't look too good.

What's left is to remove passenger side heat shield from its exhaust manifold and remove exhaust nuts and studs from both heads. Remove the intake, and then the heads.

Then wait for Pete or Tom to call to tell me my heads are done. I'm thinking next week.


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It's not a head gasket problem. This engine is junk. That looks like a cylinder rusted fast and got freed up and sold. I had no indication of a problem with oil usage or coolant loss until a few weeks ago.

Engine is dead, it needs resleaved at the minimum. I'm looking at the cost of rebuilding the engine I pulled from it to put my soon to be dead 96 engine. This sucks the big one!!!!!!!!


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I'm going to finish stripping my spare block and take it to Pete.

Hopefully the bores are still in spec. If they are and pistons are also in spec then it's hone it, rings and bearings, new Asin oil pump and slap the whole dam thing together.

That's the cheapest solution. It doesn't need to go 300,000 more miles 100k will suit me. I put around 4K a year on it.


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