Ok so more problems with my 3.0... When Im driving either on the freeway or city streets sometimes it will lurch like it tried to die and my check engine light will pop on for a second and then go off. Sometimes at will lurch and I will lose power like when I try to give it gas it just starts slowing down but I can still hear the engine trying to go, and if I down shift and pop the clutch it will stop doing it and be fine again. Sometimes it does it alot and sometimes not at all but it has been a constant problem and sometimes the downshifting doesnt work and the truck will die altogether and will take awhile to get started back up after I pull over. Also Im pretty sure my truck has a rod knock. Any ideas what this is and why its doing it? Oh and another issue...sometimes when I pull up to a stoplight or stop sign and have my foot on the brake my truck will drop idle like its about to die, it will drop then come back up to idle then drop again in a constant manner, but when I take my foot off the brake pedal it stops doing this. I dont think its ever actually died when this is happening though.

 

me say bad ground/ electrical...


My T did a similar thing... It was a bad connection under the EFI or Ignition(?) fuse... In the panel under the hood.

My recommendation is to take it to the dealer. In my case it was the best thing. ...

... after my 2 mechanic friends took turns looking at it and found nothing.

 

Well I did have a bad ignition/coil/igniter ground that I had to swap out due to my truck not even starting....and as much as I would love to take it to a dealer I dont have that kinda money which is why all my repairs are DIY and Ill have to take a look at my fuse block and see if anything looks burnt or suspicious....

 

I agree it could be a bad ground/electrical problem. I would go through it yourself and clean all the electrical connectors you can find with some CRC or similar. Replace any bad connectors, inspect the battery cables and the terminals. Give it a good once over and follow every wire you can find and make sure all the grounds on the engine, body, frame, whatever are all nice and tight and no corrosion. You might want to have a shop test the alternator and most will do it for free because it only takes a minute.

As far as your rod knock, that's not good. You may want to get that diagnosed properly and rebuild the engine if that's what it is (or kiss it off and do a 3.4 swap). Here's my story... I had a '95 runner 3.0 about 10 years ago that had a knocking sound and after about a year, it threw a rod through the block while doing about 70 miles per hour. It put out about a 20 ft wide black smokescreen and the cars behind me on the freeway were swerving and almost crashing into eachother trying to see through it. I pulled it over, but had no power brakes so I barely stopped before I crashed into a concrete barricade. The engine block was a total loss. I sold the truck as it was for way less than half of what it would have been worth at the time.

 

Yeah I'm hopin to have the money to rebuild it here in a couple of months so hopefully it holds out till then...I've started feedin it higher octane gas and I just did an oil change on it and was thrilled to find a ton of metal shards attached to my drain plug....but I did have the alternator tested a few weeks ago and it passed with flying colors so I'm guessin the issues lies somewhere in the electrical system...it is throwin a code 14 still even after I replaced the main IGN ground a couple of weeks ago, so im guessin ill find another fried wire somewhere in the ignition wiring...

 

Well I just had my "rod knock" diagnosed today. Turns out I actually either have a broken cam, rocker, or valve in one of my heads and an exhaust leak. I was thrilled to find out that I didnt need to completely rebuild the bottom half of my motor.

 

man you need a 2nd... and 3rd opinion.

Broke cam? Yeah, right... Happens all the time on the 3.0h

Broke Rocker? Yeah, right. Happens all the time on the 3.0h... And it doesn't even have rockers...

Valve? Feasible. You got the compression test results?

Find a guy on here, or IH8Mud and hope he filled in his location better than you (locations aren't important, remember?), and is local to you and can come over and put his non biased ears on it.

 

Right...sorry im not a toyota guru im still learning everything...I just looked up some pictures of the heads and realized that I dont have rockers and why couldnt it be a tweaked cam?

 

B/c cams are a special (processed) hardened steel and if Toyota went around making cams that break... I think we'd know about it... Or it'd be a "design flaw".

There are two categories in my mind: Likely, and not likely.

And a broke cam falls in the not likely category to me... 1 piece, hardened steel, no moving parts...


Grab a FSM and follow it's directions and you can inspect it yourself.

3.0's are not easy to work on but you can remove your valve covers for free... And a shop will do it for a few hundred $$$. Plus, they'll never tell you what's inside.

Personally, I think it's your Flux Capacitor. Drop it off at my place and I'll fix it. Insurance regs do not permit me to let you in the shop, and I won't work with you looking over my shoulder....

Get it?

 

lol yup I had planned on taking the valve covers off after my brother in law told me what he did about it, and from the noise the motor makes and the way he described the valve problem to me it sounds logical. He says he thinks one of the valves (probably one of the exhaust ones) isnt opening for whatever reason and since it cant open its forcing the exhaust out the intake valve when it opens. The noise is particularly loud when the top of the air box is off. So idk if his diagnosis is right or wrong but im its what im gonna work on for now to at least rule it out if nothing else.

 

sorry, there's too many threads going at once... Did you say you did a compression test?

 

No I haven't, I dont have access to a tester...

 

Harbor freight... They should be cheap at any auto parts store...

 

Ok and just to make sure I have my research right i'll be looking for the cylinder with lower compression and that would be the one with the bad exhaust valve if it has a bad one at all right?

 

So it took me awhile to find the time to work on her but I finally found the motivation to yank the valve covers yesterday and found that....It was the camshaft! It wasn't broken but the rear lobe is nice and round So now I get to go tear apart the front of the motor and put in a new camshaft, valve lifter so it doesnt eat through my new one and a timing belt of course. Since im gonna have the front of my motor apart does anyone have any routine maintanance I should do while im in there? And does anyone have a link for the timing marks on the 3vz-e? Anyways I attatched some pics so you can see the damage....its the last lobe in the back...as you can see it should be pointing towards the wheel well like the third lobe but its nice and round instead.

 

Well I got everything torn apart and got the cam out...Anything I should replace before I start buyin parts and puttin everything back together?