2002 SR5 with 171,995
Awhile back I had a few threads troubleshooting a misfire. After a long process I eventually discovered that I had a head gasket leak between cylinders 4 and 6. This may have been caused by a bad fuel injector as I also had 3 cracked exhaust valves upon disassembly. Heads were fine other than that however, no cracks or warpage.
Enter the process, quotes $3500 for repair. I say "I can do it, I do all kinds of repairs on my runner".
got all the OEM parts for this rebuild: timing belt/WP kit, drivebelts, gasket reseal kit, new tools for this job like gasket scrapers, specialty pliers, shop press axle bearing tool (donald-the-bonald is the seller, HIGHLY recommend this tool) crankshaft holding tool, camshaft tool, shop press, and while I'm doing this, might as well do the third member with a known bad pinion bearing...so i might as well do the axle seals and bearings too since I have the press, hell why not new rear brakes since I'm disassembling the drums. I sent off the third member for rebuild with Zuk and got the bearing/axle seal parts from various places. It's not wide enough knowledge but 01-02 needs a different bearing, even the rebuild kits you see online don't seem to mention this.
Step one, disassembly: everything went smooth expect for the stupid exhaust manifold flanges. They were impossible to loosen. I ended up cutting bolts, most I got out of the flange but one snapped off. My extracter eventually also snapped off inside of the bolt, so there's an ebay purchase for a new one (from a tacoma, so slightly thicker...we'll get to that). Heads and everything came off fine, harmonic balancer was a bore, required a balancer puller kit.
In struggling with the disassembly over a three day period which included many runs to stores for tools, I was bothered by my hand soreness. What killed my hand was laying under the driver side trying to hammer off and cold chisel cut off the exhaust flange nuts and bolts. Turns out that pain was one of my thumb tendons with a longitudinal split. These things tend to rupture if not handled properly (I'm a physical therapist) so I call my surgeon colleague and have surgery. Repair put on hold for 2 months until I can start light hand tool work.
Started back into car work on the rear diff. Got the third member back in (rebuilt by Ken Francisco aka ZUK) and set up. Start on the engine reassembly and got to the point where the heads were back on but the intake manifold was left off. Realized that even though I bought reconditioned fuel injectors in the 6 months prior to this during my diagnostic phase, I thought "why not?" $32 per injector just to BE SURE they're good, well worth it. Did this at my local Doctor Injector.
**side note, Purple Power is an absolute beast for cleaning basically anything. Valve covers, intake assembly, all dirty metal objects were soaked in this stuff, and the valve covers and intake manifold especially overnight. Just maker sure to get all the cleaner off with water afterwards or it will make a white scale.** Had a bit of a scare as I left the intake manifold in the oven to dry out (turn up to 175 then put manifold in and turn off oven, letting dry overnight) and my wife preheated the oven the next day to make something at 350. She's about to put food in and goes "what the hell is this?" Fortunately no damage was noted.
Finally get the top end rebuilt and the drivebelts gave me so much of a headache. They were all new OEM but they were so damned tight. The AC compressor belt was the worst, even with removing the idler pulley entirely. I actually screwed up the belt trying to pry it over and damaged one of the V grooves, so that got cut off. Luckily I had an old (new but never used) Bando belt and it went right on. So the Mitsuboshi ones are designed to make you curse in rage.
Snapped a bolt in the bellcrank lever to keep my life exciting but currently the engine starts and sounds great. There are fumes coming from the exhaust flanges (not on the block but the connector pipe connection). They have new gaskets and all new bolts/nuts from LC Performance. Maybe it's burning off oil, maybe the metal was so degraded that the mating surface is bad and it won't seal. Frankly I don't care. It's not going to affect combustion in the engine, so let it be smoky in there. Getting to those to fix it means new headers and probably exhaust piping which is $$$ but also the breakdown to get there again, NOPE not gonna do it.
Things damaged and replaced (on top of original equipment list):
Exhaust manifold, driver side ($75)
Bellcrank ($31)
V belt ($15)
Thumb tendon ($6000)
Magnetic work light ($30)...i threw it across the garage in a fit of rage
Cabinet has a giant hole in it...also a rage incident
Probably like 10 bolts/nuts
Original quote was $3500, my equipment and parts list I think started out at $900-1200 if I remember correctly. I started this process in May and only now finished due to breaks in equipment, sending things off to shops, surgery wait times, etc.
all in all, this stupid job cost me probably 3x as much as the original quote. For ONCE in my life, I'm severely disappointed that I did not pay a shop to do the work. Now, I learned a hell of a lot and gained tools and knowledge to do it again, which I pray never has to happen. But this cost me my summer weekends and a great deal of physical and financial pain. It's understandable that when working in a 18 year old car things will break but this was too much.
I will sleep somewhat better knowing that the entire top end is "refurbished" and the TB/WP will give me another 90k of service. The rear axle bearing and seals and the third member rebuild SHOULD last the rest of the vehicle's life.
Thank you to all who helped me through this process with tips and tricks. I hope to never do it again.
Awhile back I had a few threads troubleshooting a misfire. After a long process I eventually discovered that I had a head gasket leak between cylinders 4 and 6. This may have been caused by a bad fuel injector as I also had 3 cracked exhaust valves upon disassembly. Heads were fine other than that however, no cracks or warpage.
Enter the process, quotes $3500 for repair. I say "I can do it, I do all kinds of repairs on my runner".
got all the OEM parts for this rebuild: timing belt/WP kit, drivebelts, gasket reseal kit, new tools for this job like gasket scrapers, specialty pliers, shop press axle bearing tool (donald-the-bonald is the seller, HIGHLY recommend this tool) crankshaft holding tool, camshaft tool, shop press, and while I'm doing this, might as well do the third member with a known bad pinion bearing...so i might as well do the axle seals and bearings too since I have the press, hell why not new rear brakes since I'm disassembling the drums. I sent off the third member for rebuild with Zuk and got the bearing/axle seal parts from various places. It's not wide enough knowledge but 01-02 needs a different bearing, even the rebuild kits you see online don't seem to mention this.
Step one, disassembly: everything went smooth expect for the stupid exhaust manifold flanges. They were impossible to loosen. I ended up cutting bolts, most I got out of the flange but one snapped off. My extracter eventually also snapped off inside of the bolt, so there's an ebay purchase for a new one (from a tacoma, so slightly thicker...we'll get to that). Heads and everything came off fine, harmonic balancer was a bore, required a balancer puller kit.
In struggling with the disassembly over a three day period which included many runs to stores for tools, I was bothered by my hand soreness. What killed my hand was laying under the driver side trying to hammer off and cold chisel cut off the exhaust flange nuts and bolts. Turns out that pain was one of my thumb tendons with a longitudinal split. These things tend to rupture if not handled properly (I'm a physical therapist) so I call my surgeon colleague and have surgery. Repair put on hold for 2 months until I can start light hand tool work.
Started back into car work on the rear diff. Got the third member back in (rebuilt by Ken Francisco aka ZUK) and set up. Start on the engine reassembly and got to the point where the heads were back on but the intake manifold was left off. Realized that even though I bought reconditioned fuel injectors in the 6 months prior to this during my diagnostic phase, I thought "why not?" $32 per injector just to BE SURE they're good, well worth it. Did this at my local Doctor Injector.
**side note, Purple Power is an absolute beast for cleaning basically anything. Valve covers, intake assembly, all dirty metal objects were soaked in this stuff, and the valve covers and intake manifold especially overnight. Just maker sure to get all the cleaner off with water afterwards or it will make a white scale.** Had a bit of a scare as I left the intake manifold in the oven to dry out (turn up to 175 then put manifold in and turn off oven, letting dry overnight) and my wife preheated the oven the next day to make something at 350. She's about to put food in and goes "what the hell is this?" Fortunately no damage was noted.
Finally get the top end rebuilt and the drivebelts gave me so much of a headache. They were all new OEM but they were so damned tight. The AC compressor belt was the worst, even with removing the idler pulley entirely. I actually screwed up the belt trying to pry it over and damaged one of the V grooves, so that got cut off. Luckily I had an old (new but never used) Bando belt and it went right on. So the Mitsuboshi ones are designed to make you curse in rage.
Snapped a bolt in the bellcrank lever to keep my life exciting but currently the engine starts and sounds great. There are fumes coming from the exhaust flanges (not on the block but the connector pipe connection). They have new gaskets and all new bolts/nuts from LC Performance. Maybe it's burning off oil, maybe the metal was so degraded that the mating surface is bad and it won't seal. Frankly I don't care. It's not going to affect combustion in the engine, so let it be smoky in there. Getting to those to fix it means new headers and probably exhaust piping which is $$$ but also the breakdown to get there again, NOPE not gonna do it.
Things damaged and replaced (on top of original equipment list):
Exhaust manifold, driver side ($75)
Bellcrank ($31)
V belt ($15)
Thumb tendon ($6000)
Magnetic work light ($30)...i threw it across the garage in a fit of rage
Cabinet has a giant hole in it...also a rage incident
Probably like 10 bolts/nuts
Original quote was $3500, my equipment and parts list I think started out at $900-1200 if I remember correctly. I started this process in May and only now finished due to breaks in equipment, sending things off to shops, surgery wait times, etc.
all in all, this stupid job cost me probably 3x as much as the original quote. For ONCE in my life, I'm severely disappointed that I did not pay a shop to do the work. Now, I learned a hell of a lot and gained tools and knowledge to do it again, which I pray never has to happen. But this cost me my summer weekends and a great deal of physical and financial pain. It's understandable that when working in a 18 year old car things will break but this was too much.
I will sleep somewhat better knowing that the entire top end is "refurbished" and the TB/WP will give me another 90k of service. The rear axle bearing and seals and the third member rebuild SHOULD last the rest of the vehicle's life.
Thank you to all who helped me through this process with tips and tricks. I hope to never do it again.
