My 3.4L puked this weekend

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partyof5

New member
My 3.4L T4R Gen3 blew up this weekend. It went pop, puked oil and started rattling. We shut it down immediately. Once we got it towed and up on a rack we found a hole in the block (passenger side). This is a well maintained, adult driven, 3.4L with 150k miles. I'm sick to my stomach about this.

Question 1 - What mechanical failures could have caused this? I'm not willing to accept that it just blew up for no reason.

Question 2 - Has anybody purchased a motor from JDM Engines Chicago? Your thoughts?
 
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m0ist said:
my guess is you threw a rod. did you hit any big puddles from all that rain we had?
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This. What were you doing when it happened?

Could have been hydrolocked from water, or coolant from a blown headgasket. Or oil contamination, etc.
 
That is strange for a well maintained 3.4 to suffer a catastrophic failure at only 150k.
Must have been some extenuating circumstance.
 
No puddles. It's been pretty dry here. The hole is high on the block so there is still oil showing on the dipstick. I know it doesn't say much but it looks very normal. No warning signs or sounds at all. I started it, pulled out of a parking lot into the street and about 100 yards later, pop.

I'm hoping we find out more when we dig into it.

I'm ordering a used engine today. Hope I don't get burned on that.
 
I think if you provide more details on what you were doing prior to pulling out of the parking lot it could help. Something that just fails randomly is normally tied to something else.

How long have you had the engine? First Owner?
 
Vehicle history is pretty clean. It's a 98 limited with everything, including the Elocker. I have the original window sticker from 1998. $39k.

0-12k miles - Driven by dealer owner's wife. Light hit in the rear. Body work done by dealer.
12k-109k - purchased by mechanic at that dealer. Owned for 13 years.

I picked it up with 109k in 2012. It's my daily commuter. Never been off road. I'm not sure I've ever had it on a gravel road. Oil changes every 3k. Replaced some regular items in the last 5 years (axle seals, brakes, shocks/struts, etc). Timing belt was done at 84k. I was planning to do that in 2018 again.

It's the poster child of clean 4 runners, at least in this part of the country.

As for driving habits leading up to the incident, very normal street driving. Nothing out of the ordinary. The worst thing I've every done to this was tow a 3000lb single axle trailer about 12 miles, which it handled fine although it squated the rear end a little.
 
As shitty as it may seem, there is sometimes no forewarning of a major engine incident. Could have been a manufacturing defect if the rod broke, misfire, etc. Regardless of how fantastic the durability on these engines may be overall, there are always a few bad eggs. Law of averages.

Most used engines from a reputable JDM distributor will have a warranty, at least for a time. Hopefully this new engine works out for you.
 
This is probably the first total engine failure that I've read on here, maybe there were a couple others but it is extremely rare for these engines to have a catastrophic failure like that.

Sounds like you threw a rod...

Good luck with the replacement though!
 
150K I bet you are sick to your stomach! I blew a head gasket at 180K and had to learn about engine swap. good luck with your JDM engine, I took a chance with a junkyard engine, so far so good!
 
Once we dig into it and find out what the heck happened, I will let you all know. The mechanic, who worked for a Toyota Dealer for 14 years, has never seen one like this. He's chomping at the bit to get into it too.

I elected not to go JDM. I've read too many horror stories. I found a USDM with 88k miles. It is quite a bit more than the JDM engines out there, but I feel better about it because I know where it came from.
 
partyof5 said:
Once we dig into it and find out what the heck happened, I will let you all know. The mechanic, who worked for a Toyota Dealer for 14 years, has never seen one like this. He's chomping at the bit to get into it too.

I elected not to go JDM. I've read too many horror stories. I found a USDM with 88k miles. It is quite a bit more than the JDM engines out there, but I feel better about it because I know where it came from.
Click to expand...

whats a USDM motor?
 
baja1 said:
whats a USDM motor?
Click to expand...

JDM = Japanese Domestic Market = JDM motors are from cars sold in Japan. Companies import those used motors to the US and they are sold as JDM motors.

USDM = US Domestic Market = These motors come out of cars that were originally sold in the US.
 
Yeah that is weird.

Back in 2002 I had a 95 Toyota pickup and I loved this guy's new 2001 Toyota Tacoma pick-up. It was interesting to hear his story. His motor did something similar at just 30K. The dealer took him to court saying he didn't do his recommend maintenance. The dealer lost and had to provide another motor. So it's not impossible, just rare. Very curious what you find out.
 
My Son lightly crashed his '99. minor front end damage but the frame was bent so it was toast. We looked for a "roller" we could use for a donor body/frame and finally found a '98 the seller claimed had a "seized motor due to lack of oil".

Whatever...we didn't need any of the engine/drivetrain since it would all be coming from the '99. We pull the motor and there is a hole the size of a silver dollar in the block above the oil filter housing on the driver side. Pull the oil pan and there are all kids of wadded up goodies in there...several large chunks of metal that look to be main bearings, a connecting rod cap and a large part of the main bearing cap among other things. Haven't totally disassembled yet - trying to get the swap completed - but will take a closer look once we are done and have some time.

Catastrophic failure for certain. Judging from the hot mess this rig was in as we broke it down (nothing properly torqued, UBJ/LBJ/TRE all shot, sway bar ends broken, etc), I am nearly certain it saw very little maintenance and was likely driven very hard.

Sorry to hear about yours...never fun to deal with.
 
A hole in the side of the block with no other indication (like a 50 cal bullet hole in fender) points to a thrown rod or a failed piston. Got any pics?
 
I have followed this forum pretty closely for over ten years. I think I have seen two thrown rods. Both were out of the blue and penetrated the crankcase. Very rare, but it happens. One I think the rod bolts failed--one unscrewed and the other broke so the circle around the crank came apart.

Here is a pic of one on YT I found:

197152d1502131792-my-4runner-threw-rod-pics-cimg2363.jpg


https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/my-4runner-threw-rod-pics-185253/
 
I'll snap a bunch of pics tonight....more likely tomorrow since I will have to contend with panhandlers tonight :). I was surprised to see it myself but like I said, this rig was a hot mess and a disaster waiting to happen. We already replaced the entire front end and bolt checked everything that remained and there wasn't one bolt that was even close to correctly torqued.

Glad we only needed the body and frame. I'll get pics asap.


ahhh...I couldn't wait :) Need to find the shrapnel and will take a pic of it once I do....

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