Rust on 3rz-fe cam shaft

[Pyral]

There is rust on the cam shaft lobes. I barely know how well this engine was treated, but the last owner wasn't super ideal to say the least.

There is rust on the cam lobes, the timing chain tensioner seems pretty far out too. The engine is 23 years old with 177k. The dark spots in the photo aren't oil, they are corrosion.

Link to album

 

[JZiggy]

The dark stuff is just varnish. It actually doesn’t look bad — no sludge or deposits. Just some stain from slightly over long oil changes. A few fills of full synth (diesel spec is best) may reduce it over time.

Try to count the exposed teeth on the tensioner. It looks about how mine does but it’s hard to tell.

 

[Devbot]

Are you talking about that orange coloration? You realize that's just varnish right? Pull the covers off any valvetrain of similar age/mileage and it'll look very close to the same, especially if they use conventional oil. The only way they could possibly rust is if water entered the valvetrain and the engine sat until it fully dried out, in which case you would've notice a lot more problems before now
The spark plug wells aren't super uncommon; just how they seal up. Moisture gets in one way or another but can't get out
Edit: screeenshot of how my 5VZ cams look to give an idea. PO used lots of dino fluid

 

[Pyral]

I've owned it for 12k miles and I've probably done 3 or 4 oil changes, 2 with synthetic oil. I think an seafoam oil treatment might be in order. I think your right about it being varnish, but there is definitely corrosion on the inside of the valve cover.

The sparkplugs had a good seal, really struggled to pull them out the first time, now they come out easily. I think the coils were replaced at some point, they aren't numbered annoyingly and they don't have a date on them like the stock ones do.

For some reason my denso spark plugs had this neoprene ring around them, IDK if its from the after market coils, but this neoprene stuff was falling apart and its resting on the lip where the spark plug usually sits. I'm worried I might get shreds of this neoprene substance in my cylinder. Should I worry?

Oh and I counted the teeth on the timing chain tensioner. I think there was 10 or about that. Anyone know how many teeth there are total?

Answered my question: there are approximately 20 teeth on the tensioner total. So I'm at half life. Had to pause and count teeth on this video.

 

[Bad Luck]

I've owned it for 12k miles and I've probably done 3 or 4 oil changes, 2 with synthetic oil. I think an seafoam oil treatment might be in order. I think your right about it being varnish, but there is definitely corrosion on the inside of the valve cover.

The sparkplugs had a good seal, really struggled to pull them out the first time, now they come out easily. I think the coils were replaced at some point, they aren't numbered annoyingly and they don't have a date on them like the stock ones do.

For some reason my denso spark plugs had this neoprene ring around them, IDK if its from the after market coils, but this neoprene stuff was falling apart and its resting on the lip where the spark plug usually sits. I'm worried I might get shreds of this neoprene substance in my cylinder. Should I worry?

Oh and I counted the teeth on the timing chain tensioner. I think there was 10 or about that. Anyone know how many teeth there are total?

Answered my question: there are approximately 20 teeth on the tensioner total. So I'm at half life. Had to pause and count teeth on this video.

It's all varnish. There is no corrosion on the engine internals or the inside of the valve cover.

I have a different engine but none of my spark plug coils are numbered or marked from the factory.

The neoprene stuff you are talking about isn't an issue. If you really want to you can vacuum it out with a shop vac with a smaller diameter rubber hose (heater core hose works good if it will fit) duck taped to the shop vac hose to reduce it down.

 

[Devbot]

I've owned it for 12k miles and I've probably done 3 or 4 oil changes, 2 with synthetic oil. I think an seafoam oil treatment might be in order. I think your right about it being varnish, but there is definitely corrosion on the inside of the valve cover.

The sparkplugs had a good seal, really struggled to pull them out the first time, now they come out easily. I think the coils were replaced at some point, they aren't numbered annoyingly and they don't have a date on them like the stock ones do.

For some reason my denso spark plugs had this neoprene ring around them, IDK if its from the after market coils, but this neoprene stuff was falling apart and its resting on the lip where the spark plug usually sits. I'm worried I might get shreds of this neoprene substance in my cylinder. Should I worry?

Oh and I counted the teeth on the timing chain tensioner. I think there was 10 or about that. Anyone know how many teeth there are total?

Answered my question: there are approximately 20 teeth on the tensioner total. So I'm at half life. Had to pause and count teeth on this video.

If you're talking about light pitting here and there that isn't corrosion nor uncommon with older vehicles that have potentially been neglected at one point. Very common with age regardless. I don't see how steel would corrode in the presence of oil unless you're using straight crude

 

[brillo_76]

The steel internals only rust if an engine sits a long time without running or being spun to coat the parts with oil.

Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

 

[phattyduck]

Looks like a great engine. The only (incredibly minor) corrosion I saw was on the inside of the spark plug tube. Still not an issue.

Do the next couple oil changes with Rotella T6 and your engine can look like this inside (250k miles of dino oil, then 20k of T6):

You can see the varnish is still getting cleaned up, but much of the engine is quite nice already.

-Charlie

 

[cl4Rk]

Looks like a great engine. The only (incredibly minor) corrosion I saw was on the inside of the spark plug tube. Still not an issue.

Do the next couple oil changes with Rotella T6 and your engine can look like this inside (250k miles of dino oil, then 20k of T6):

You can see the varnish is still getting cleaned up, but much of the engine is quite nice already.

-Charlie

Looks great. I'm a newbie, please tell me more
- What weight are you using with Rotella T6?
- Synth?
- All 5.5 quarts of Rotella? Or a blend?
- Any side effects or anything to watch out for?
- cat converter damage over time?
- temporary cleaning tactic? or run Rotella forever?

Thanks

 

[TravThePro]

Looks great. I'm a newbie, please tell me more
- What weight are you using with Rotella T6?
- Synth?
- All 5.5 quarts of Rotella? Or a blend?
- Any side effects or anything to watch out for?
- cat converter damage over time?
- temporary cleaning tactic? or run Rotella forever?

Thanks

I would run the 5-40 for the Rotella T6 and all of the Rotella T6 is synthetic. Just use the T6 and don't bother blending it with anything else. If you already have oil leaks then they can become worse with the detergents eating away all of the buildup blocking them off. The only way you will damage your catalytic converter with oil is if your engine burns a ton of oil (worn valve seals or seized/worn piston oil rings). Using T6 and other high detergent oils have actually helped with making this problem less significant in the past for a few older/neglected engines we have used it on. I know people who run it once every 2-3 oil changes and people who refuse to use anything but the Rotella T in their engines. Seeing the additives in T6 I would say that it is completely safe to run it long-term in our engines. The most important thing with running a high detergent oil after potential long-term abuse on an engine (you have no idea how the PO took care of it) is to use a really high-quality oil filter.

 

[phattyduck]

^^^ That about covers it.

I run it fully time on my older engines (ones that originally called for 5w30 or 10w30), 5w40 weight. Whether you want to do that is up to you. There is some theoretical chance of cat damage, but I haven't seen it yet (and pass CA smog every two years).

-Charlie