dromomaniac

Hi all,

in a couple weeks a will be replacing a number of parts in my 94 dlx extracab with a 3.0 and 209,xxx miles. Most of the stuff will be ordered over the next week from the interweb, so I thought I would post my plans here to see if I have thought of everything necessary. Also, if anyone has input on part brands, I would love to here it.

As an overview, I intend to replace the valve cover gaskets, the timing belt, and the radiator. I may need to replace the main seals, as well. Basically, I needed to do the VC gaskets and the timing belt, but if I'm going to deal with the BS involved in both tasks, I thought I should replace a few other things as well.

Also, I've never done this stuff before, so there's that-will have a mech friend for advice, occasional oversight.

So, I have on my shopping list:

a)Timing belt, idler bearing, tensioner, water pump, T-stat (maybe housing?)
b)VC gaskets, RTV, PCV valve, grommet, and vent hose, rear cam seals, plenum gasket,
c)radiator and hoses

Am I missing anything (tools are accounted for already)?

For background on gaskets and seals, I think my truck runs pretty well. It's quiet, smooth, gets decent mpg (for a 3.0) and has handled some pretty epic trips in scorching weather. However, it leaks oil like a stuck, oil-filled pig. The bulk of recent leaking likes to collect along the bottom-front of the transmission. At the very least, this leak is coming from the VC gasket, but mechanics I've talked with say that the rear main is probably an issue. The oil pan seal seems fine.

Because there is no wiggle room anywhere on this truck, am I going to have to pull the engine to get at the rear main?

Finally, am I totally negligent for ignoring valve adjustment?

Thanks to all for advice, and for the great threads already available! This whole site continues to amaze me.

JG

OutlawMike

If you have the valve covers off, check the valve clearances as per the FSM. You are already in there, might as well. When I did mine I was able to swap a few shims around to get everything in the middle of the clearance range. One was tight, another was at the top of the range, but in spec. I pulled both of the shims to measure them and realized that if I swapped shims they both would be at the middle of the clearance range. Usually it is the exhaust valves that are tight, the intake valves don't seem to change much over time.

Be careful of the knock sensor pigtail wire on the drivers side wiring harness, under the plenum, along the driver's side fuel rail. That wire can be very brittle and if you damage it, you will throw a code 52 and be back in there to take the fuel rails and the intake manifold off to replace the pigtail.

Most likely your oil leak issues are the valve cover gaskets and the rear cam seals. I would be very surprised if your rear main was the main culprit. You would have to pull the trans or the motor to do the rear main.

You will not have to change the thermostat housing. It is just a cap that goes over the T-stat, made from aluminum, re-use it.

You will have the plenum and throttle body off the vehicle. You might as well clean up the throttle body really good and flow water through the TB coolant lines to blow any gunk out of there that has built up. Also, you might want to check the TPS resistances while you have the TB off the vehicle, it is easier that way.

Good luck, and post up if you have problems.

Mike

dromomaniac

Thanks for answering all those questions, Mike! I'll tuck into the books to figure out what I need for the valves.

Beautiful 4Runner, by the way!

Cheers!

betelnut

Dang, OutlawMike, where were you when I asked the same questions about this job? :-/ Great list, though.

Some notes based on my job:
- Be sure you have the FSM! Lots of places you can download it for free.
- Tensioner was very expensive, >$50, so I just reused mine, after checking it per FSM. Found a largish C-clamp & piano wire did the trick of retracting & retaining the mechanism.
- Redid front cam shaft seals. Would have been an easy job except I was sloppy and had to redo one. Second time, pulling all the stuff apart took only a couple hours, so not bad.
- Figure out now what to do about a cam sprocket holder. I did without one, and it was ugly.
- Big debate around here on what kind of FIPG to use; do a search. Common, though, is that very few folks recommend RTV.
- Check your valve adjustment!
- I got the cheapie parts off of ebay, and found out (after finishing the job) that the tensioner pulley was not turning. Buy good parts, and check them per FSM.
- Another possible source of the leak is the oil pan, but I still vote for VC.
- I had a big stash of ziplocs & put the nuts/bolts for each part in one bag w/label. Also took pics. My detailed pics of plenum hoses saved my butt, and still lacked detail; the next time I put tape labels on each one.

92 TOY

subscribed for future project.

good job guys.

dromomaniac

Betelnut, thanks for the further advice. I expect this whole thing to be 9 parts PITA and 1 part unpleasant...until it's done, and then I'll just slide on those rosy glasses of hindsight! You. Guys. Are. Awesome.

First, I should be able to borrow the tools I don't have. Second, good call on E-Bay! I was going to get the Aisin water pump, but otherwise go with a 'kit' for the timing job. Since I'm ordering a bzillion things from rockauto I'll see what options I have. Redoing the front cam seals makes sense, too. I will have about a week to work with, and since all these parts are pretty cheap I figure I might as well do as much as I can.

I will do the valves, even if I'm a little intimidated by them!

I'll take photos of the whole process and try to do a write up that sensibly ties it all together. However, I expect that all free minutes that week will be spent in a state of intoxication (it took the full strength of two large men and half a can of PB blaster to break loose one of the studs when I changed my axle, so this thing is bound to be full of special moments)!

edit -- I do have the PDF version of the FSM. I've been slyly printing it off at work and am at 500 pages. Gonna friggin bind it in leather!

Go time is the 18th, so I have a few days to get my ducks in a row before I start spending money. Any more thoughts on part brands?

I also plan to run a compression test before this all starts. Any other tests I should run before I jump in?

pb4ugotobed

Was just going to say, at least CHECK the valve lash. If it's off, FIX IT. I bought my truck for $800 because the previous owner didn't stay on top of the valve lash, and literally beat the valve seats out of the head, resulting in no compression in 2 cylinders.

dromomaniac

Valve lash is on the list, I sure didn't want it to be, but I really am trying to do this completely and completely right. As long as I no one tells me to do the head gasket..

pb4ugotobed

Also, someone said to be careful with the knock sensor pigtail harness. Ignore what they said, it isn't worth being careful with. You can buy a new one from the dealer for about $15. While you're in there, just replace it. It'll take an extra 10 minutes of disassembling when you have it torn down that far anyways, and prevent future problems. Any time I get into one of these engines (my own included) if I'm anywhere near that area, I'm replacing that harness. I don't care if I was in there yesterday, if I'm going back in there today it's getting another new one. It's not worth the hassle to 'be careful'. Just replace it while you're there.

OutlawMike

This is probably better advice than mine of just being careful. Just know that to do this you have to remove the fuel rails and the intake manifold. Then you have the decision of having the injectors serviced, or not. Also, do you replace all of the seals on the injectors, as they dry out over time and you just disturbed all of them. That pigtail is a risk item whenever pulling the plenum off, but many have done the job without replacing it and been fine. And a few have had to go back in there to replace it.

dromomaniac

DISREGARD...I just went ahead and got it.

One more question:

radiator? I know this is a contentious subject, but I am about to order the all metal, 'heavy duty' CSF rad for the 3.0. Should I? I'm not positive that the current rad is OEM but several sizable areas of fins have been totally demolished and it 'looks' like hell. It doesn't leak, and thus far I haven't had any overheating troubles.

My deal is this, I don't often have the spare money to throw at this truck, but I have a little now and I'm soon relocating from the wet, cool PNW to Arizona. Thus, I reckon that cooling components deserve special consideration (also considering headers, but don't feel like I'm sold on them yet).

Pretty much all other parts are on the way, and I managed to obtain most in the factory brand name. But the stock Denso radiator is $500 compared to $160-180 for the CSF model.

dromomaniac

Hello to the amazing authors of yotatech. Thanks to you all, and to a couple friends, I was able to carry out the job discussed in this thread. I was laid-up for awhile after being injured in a hit-and-run, and ended up doing work on my truck with only a few days available before I had to move. All told, changing valve cover gaskets, timing belt (and all other belts), water pump, water outlet pulley, radiator, and spark wires took me about four solid days of work. I had never done significant wrenching in an engine, and the whole thing was a major learning experience. A skilled friend from the local Napa fixed the timing, which still boggles me, and which was way off after yanking the cam and crank pulleys. If I had to do it again, I would put it at about 12 hours of work given my current knowledge.

Finally, after sitting with its guts hanging out for months, and because my schedule was so tight, the truck’s “test drive” turned out to be a 1,700 mile drive through the Great Basin and into the Sonoran desert, from North Oregon through all of Nevada and Arizona! It was 118f in the shade of central Nevada!! Not only did the truck do just fine, but after all of the work it runs faster (I can get her up to 80 at under 3500 rpms, a big improvement—hello, passing lane!), and still made 19-21 mpg. Heat was not an issue as the fan only kicked into high gear when I was hauling up passes in third gear at 4500 rpms and in 110-degree heat. Best of all? No more oil leaking!

Some issues I had, and some that I expected to have, but did not:

--Getting the intake hose off was crazy. I don’t know if this is normal, but it took me two hours to wriggle it off of the plenum/throttle body. Lube it somehow.

--I did not remove the wiring in the engine, nor did I remove the PS pulley. Working around these added little extra stress. The TVV was a non-issue.

--the new valve cover gaskets were too stiff to allow the covers to sit flush with the heads. Because of this, I expect to have to crawl back in there sometime and re-torque the cover bolts.

--the water outlet/timing pulley wouldn’t come out; or rather, the studs that hold it in wouldn’t. By extension, nothing to the rear of it would come out either, so I sawed off the studs, replacing them with bolts during reassembly. In retrospect, having a bucket or box of 8mm, 10mm, 11mm, 12mm, and 14mm nuts and bolts would have saved time. Having quick-ratcheting tools like Snap-On or (in my case) Gear Wrench was a real help. My crappy Craftsman tools frequently failed to ratchet in the tight spaces of the 3.0.

--removing pulleys: for the cam pulleys, and per a thread on this site, I used a chunk of 2x6 with two bolts sunk through it to lock into the pulley spokes and a hole between them through which a socket could fit. Brace this against the water outlet. For the crankshaft I used an impact wrench-I also looped an old drive belt around the crank pulley, hooked a tow strap to that, and then pushed the truck forward so that the driver’s side front tire held the tow strap taught. I think that this would have worked had I used a manual wrench, though an extra set of hands (lending opposing force to the pulley) would certainly make life easier.

--The only part(s) that I needed PB blaster for were the brass nuts that connect the EGR to its pipes. Those guys were terrible. No words of wisdom except: be careful and have a giant wrench. All other nuts and bolts broke loose without much trouble.

--almost everything plastic beneath the plenum broke—or more accurately, it disintegrated.

I’ll try to do a proper write-up, but it will be missing some key photos that were eaten by my camera (this added a few hours to the job as I scratched my head and tried to piece back together the 1 bzillion hoses of the 3vze). Patience was the key. The 3vze is so friggin’ tight to work in that I couldn’t get anything done unless in a total state of Zen calm. Take the time to understand the system and you save yourself a lot of work. Labeling the crud out of everything is even more important. Oh, bandages and beer are probably important considerations, as well.

In the end, this was an enjoyable job. Disassembly was not fun, and took up 75% of the time spent, but after that it’s really a fun job for a rookie like myself.

Anyway, thanks again yotatech!

92 TOY

Nice follow-up.

good job

actually after re-doing my 22re, i'm finding that either the 3vze is easy or it's just that my knowledge base is more significant that when i was doing the 22re.

glad you are back on the road.

betelnut

Great job, dromomaniac! You've got a lot of moxy, driving 1600 miles right after your first time doing this job.

Don't worry about the valve cover gaskets, they're not supposed to touch the head. They're not supposed to be torqued down hard at all, or they'll warp and leak, if not outright crack.

I leave the wiring in too, when doing the timing belt. It does make it a bit harder to get the pass. side valve cover back in, especially with the FIPG there. You're right on with only working when in the state of Zen. This job needs a lot of finesse.

On those exhaust parts, put anti-seize lube on them before putting them back together to make the job easier next time.

Congrats!

nosfanatic2006

iTrader: (1)

I'm thinking I'm going to just pay the stealership for the work on my engine, for now atleast. I have limited engine knowledge, and even less Zen statedness. This job would take me weeks to do if I wanted to be in a Zen state the whole time haha. Engines piss me off for some reason...especially the 3VZE...and when I'm pissed, nothing makes sense haha

Congrats on the success though!

dromomaniac

Thanks all for the kind words. Still no oil leaking. Next stop: suspension and drive line,