ritzy69

I have a question for people who know about 3.0's, about 5 months ago I had my heads R&Red new cams installed, the mechanic told me the block was no good because one of the threads stripped out in the block. Could this be true? Now right after I hit 5000 miles on it, the head gasket started leaking around #6 cylinder. Is this a sign of shoddy work or should I find a different engine. By the way the engine only has 130000 miles on it.

terky

Where did it get stripped out? You can always rethread it and if a shop tells you you cant they just want your money. I dunno about the head gasket though.

aLostDawg

So, did you purchase a different block? or did you tell him to just put it back together? If it were me, I'd take it back to him and tell him to fix it. There should be some sort of guarantee on his work.

freeflyer

Man, I hate to see you in such a bind. It sucks to shell out all that dough for only 5k miles. I went though changing head gaskets on my 95 3.0 4Runner back in March.

Here's what I found. The blocks on these engines are cast iron and the heads are alluminum. The expansion rate between these two metals are different. So, every time the engine heats up then cools it pushes the gasket out a little. For me it was a stuck thermosat that finally blew mine. Anyway, as the gasket pushes out the metal on both the heads and block become pitted(starting to wash out). I found out when Toyota was changing head gaskets as a curtousey they were using JB weld to patch the pitting before reassembly.

You said the mechanic said the block was damaged because of a striped out hole. Did he change the block or just left the bolt out. If he left the bolt out I'd say shoddy work. If he changed the block, I'd say shoddy work cause a heli coil could repair that.

As for me I love my 4 runner and I think it's worth keeping it going. If you can keep those head gaskets sealed(which a worthy mechanic should be able to do and get maybe 70k miles on them)

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Bruce

ritzy69

The mechanic used to work for toyota about 15 yrs, and he said that the block was no good since he stripped out one of the threads when he was tightening the head bolts, so he took the head back off and heli coiled it and put it back together with the same bolts. Since that one hole stripped out he said the block was junk, since he had worked on over 200 engines and never had this problem before. I kind a find that hard to believe that the block is no good just because of one set of threads stripping out. Have you ever heard of this before. I think that him telling me that is a way for him to get out of guaranteeing his work is my thinking.

freeflyer

I'm not entirely sure, but the heli coil should hold up as new threads. Is the gasket leaking near the stripped out bolt? If not, may be the pitting and washing out or shoddy work. It's possible he is trying to avoid warrentying the job.

crancher

I didn't think you were suppose to reuse the same head bolts....I've heard they stretch or something

drkgypsy

He heli-coiled the stripped bolt hole, that HE stripped out, and re-used the same bolts instead of new....mmmm.....sound like he failed shade-tree mechanics 101. If he works for a shop, I'd be inclined to make a call to the BBB in that area....If he's a private (out-of home) mechanic I'd go over after dinner and "make him an offer he can't refuse"......oh ahhh sorry, me being italian and all.... but sererously make a call to the BBB and see what they say just my .02 cents

ritzy69

When he was putting it back together, he never gave me an option of whether I wanted it heli coiled or not, he was in a hurry to get it done. I can tell which side that he retorqued the bolt because they are leaking or dirty on that side, also the other head is really clean no leakage at all. I have not been able to get hold of him lately, but when I do chat with him about this situation and give him a choice if fixing it or I will have my friend put the word out in town that he does shoddy work, since it is a realitively small town, which in turn will hurt his side business pretty well.