Raynyc

hey guys ,
i just bought this 1st gen 4runner with 110k miles , it has a tick at idle that i can get to get louder as i rev the gas, if i keep it at one rpm it goes away but if i rev it , it gets really loud then goes quiet , to me it sounds like a stuck lifter or bent pushrod , but i would love to hear from anyone that has had this problem first hand and that could maybe point me in a direction before i take the top of the motor off to diagnose .

thanks in advance

RAY

millball

Sure it's not an exhaust leak??

Raynyc

I really wish that's what it was , I actually started off thinking it was the exhaust

Trents3.slow

The 3.0 is an over head cam engine(no pushrods)
It has valve shim caps that the cam lobes contact. Get a stethoscope and listen to where it's coming from.

Raynyc

Thanks that's way easier than what I,was thinking

Trents3.slow

You're welcome.

Charchee

Good find on the low mile 1st gen. The 3.0 has a pretty noisy valvetrain as it is. I've heard folks say you shouldn't worry until it gets quiet but I think I might do a valve adjustment on that baby. I don't fool with my valves anymore as it's getting close to time to rebuild or swap mine out and I don't want to make any adjustments while she is still running good. Yours should have another 100K in it at least so I say it was a good idea and it will give you a look at what you have going on under the valve covers. If you aren't ready to tackle that yet, check your timing and make sure everything is ok there. Is it running like it should other than the noise?

Raynyc

does anyone have a scanned shop manual i can DL?

MaK92-4RnR

Believe it or not, the 3vz actually has a quiet valve train. The "tick" at idle is commonly mistaken as a valve tick, but in reality it's the fuel injectors.

Janos01

The click your hearing, if its from the lifters could be due the viscosity of your oil as well. I use 10W-30 for my 3.0 VZ-e. Not necessarily an issue, but thinner oil could make the lifters click more.

Raynyc

can i use sythetic with out a problem ? i use it on my 80 but its an inline 6

Charchee

That's good to know. Makes sense too now that you mention it. I guess those folks are right about it being a healthy sound.

On the synthetic oil in a 25 year old engine, I wouldn't. I am a huge fan of synthetic oils. I run them in all of my modern engines and will run it in the 3.0 if I ever rebuild it. I worked for several years in an oil lab analyzing oil samples all day and have seen amazing results out of it. I have also had to listen to people blame the oil for high particle counts in their samples and oil leaks. Both of these do occur often but only with engines that ran most of their lives on conventional and then switched. The synthetic will break up some deposits that conventional will not. These deposits have been in the engine for years and only after switching over, will start to break up and flow through the engine. Samples always cleared up after a couple oil changes but then the leaks showed up. The deposits were filling the gaps in worn seals that would have leaked if not for the deposits.

I put 10W-30 in my old runner when I first got it at 200K plus miles. Saw a little drop in my oil pressure gauge, which I know isn't very accurate, and it was a little more noisy. Went to 10W-40 next time with better results. I may even try a little 15W-40 next time around.

MaK92-4RnR

I've been using 15w40 Rotella Conventional since owning my 88 4Runner. No complaints, no leaks. She purrs like a kitten, besides the injector tick. It's got 240k miles on the original bottom (top end was gone through at 205k) and never lets me down. When the top end blew, i installed this: . Gauges are volts, oil pressure and water temperature. Added the volt gauge because my 4Runner used to be an Automatic, therefore the volt gauge was replaced with a ECT gauge.

It's unfortunate the 3vz gets the bad reputation from a headgasket repair.