toddserious

I had a rebuilt motor put in my 92 runner in March 09 by a shop here in Vancouver, got a new rad and water pump with it. In April the headgasket went. The shop warrantied it but the owner personally called me and told me that he had half a mind not to because the truck was muddy and so obviously abused off road. I had been down one long and muddy driveway the day before the gasket went but I was no where near hard on it.
Today the Timing cover gasket started leaking oil badly. I took it to the shop and they say it's a 12 hour job in their book. I'm expecting a call from the engine rebuilder again as he is on the hook for another huge bill.
Can anyone think of something that I could have done to cause this gasket to start leaking? Go wild throw some crazy ideas at me. He is gonna try and blame me and I wanna be ready.

thanks

RMA

Dude I dont think the shop should be telling you what to do with your Truck, when an engine is rebuilt by a machine shop they will put metal tabs on it that melt at a certain temp as long as you do not overheat it and melt these tabs they will warranty the engine with no questions asked , this shop is just trying to get out of fixing their crappy job.

good luck!!!

JeEVeS

playing devils advocate.

-you let your oil get to hot.
----there would be more damage than just a gasket

-you tried to fix/take it off/ didn't install properly
----did you?

There is no reason an oem headgasket should crap put in a month unless it is installed incorrectly or you did not have water in the truck. did they use oem parts or whatever they could get.

are you using sythetic engine oil. this would be able to find its way through an oem gasket because it is thin enough but i along with others i have seen run synth with no problems. i rebuilt my motor 2 years ago and done 8 or 9 synthetic oil changes with no leaking problems so as long as they are quality gaskets i see no problem anyway.

where around the timing chain cover is it driping/spilling/flowing? they timing chain cover has 2 or 4 bolts that connect to the oilpan as well as one that comes down from inside the head (that many people can't find or forget, my dad being one of them). i can see both of these being prone to leak but only if installed improperly.

o, is it a 22re or a 3vz? everything i said is about a 22.

also in my experiance don't give the builder your full mind full until after it is fixed. let him know you are upset with the situation but don't call him a dumb arse until he fixes it. you don't want a grudge against the guy working on your motor cause a socket will get left in the oil pan or something.

my thoughts are a little jumply cause im just trying to throw stuff out there but did he use factory gaskets?on the 22re timing cover there is a gasket that runs down the left side and one down the right. these along with rtv and fipg for the oil pan should be used. i would imagine many don't use fipg but rtv is close. fipg (form in place gasket) is a toyota stocked gasket material used on the oil pan sometimes, thats black. as well off topic there is orange fipg or transmissions and transfer cases.

im gonna go play with my truck and think about anything else that might help.

toddserious

Thanks for your quick replies
The motor is a 22re.
I am using regular motor oil. I was told that it was best not to use Synthetic for the first 2-3 changes.
I don't think they put the metal melty tabs on you mentioned but I will have a look anyway it would be good to be able to use that against them. Where would they be located?
I didn't do any of the work on this job so It wasn't me botching up anything. They may have used cheap gaskets or something but you'd think they would know better this is a big shop been in business for decades.
When you say the oil got too hot do you mean like crazy rad boiling hot? Or even hotter?
The temp has never been up past the center of the gauge.
When the re and re shop did the headgasket maybe they f-ed up the bolt you mentioned. If so they will never let on if they discover it as they do this timing gasket job. I couldn't see exactly where the oil was coming from as it was quite a mess, the oil was a heavy drip that developed in a very short time. 15 miles max.

I'm playing nice right now for sure I don't want to give them any reason to dislike me until my warranty is expired.

thanks again for your help it really helps my argument to know both side of what I'm talking about.

JeEVeS

i have never heard of melting tabs, but have never had a shop do my work. seems reasonable to do something like that.

and once you have seen that bolt from the head to the timing chain cover i don't think you could forget about it. oil sit in the chanel where the head of the bolt is so it hides in oil. but a mechanic would read about it or know about it.


sometimes theres just flukes. i rebuilt my tranny and installed a brand new oem throw out bearing. that tranny had third gear take a crap so i put in a new tranny with the old throwout bearing which had no problems and then in the newest tranny it was bad so i got another brand new oem. something anyone else would have done to start but it was a fluke that it went out.

maybe read your paperwork and see if they cover only their craftsmanship or the craftsmanship of the parts they use as well.

again this is all for your ammunition. not saying you did bad or they did.

toddserious

Got my truck back yesterday. No problems with warranty covering it... sorta. The shop that installed the motor says they will not be covering the work they have done?. The machine shop that rebuilt the motor wasn't willing to provide decent gaskets just cheap ones. I think I basically killed the relationship between these 2 shops. Oh well. Do the job right or just get out. If you're gonna get a motor rebuilt make sure you see what parts they are gonna use. If I had done this install myself It woulda cost me another 25 hours of my own labour to get things to where they are now. Scary.
thanks for your input guys.

RMA

Here is a of a 3.0 head with one of those tabs.

I have used a couple of machine shops here in san jose and they all use this tabs the center section is supposed to melt at a certain temp that is bad for the engine if this melts the the warranty is no good.

toddserious

Thanks for the picture of the melty tabs, my motor doesn't have them. On future rebuilds I will request them I think.