bmwpower

History:
I had the Toyota dealership replace the timing belt, water pump, etc. on my wife's 97 4Runner. 10K miles later, my wife noticed the truck was driving really sluggish. I took it for a test drive and noticed the same thing. We took the truck back to the dealer to get it checked out. Turns out the crank pulley bolt was loose. The loose bolt caused the crank gear to wear. Toyota ended up replaced the timing belt, crank gear, crank shaft key and bolt. Apparently, the technician didn't tighten it down enough...doh.

So, I'm driving the truck the other day (66K miles later) and I noticed this vibration coming from the engine. I popped the hood and saw the crank pulley wobbling a little bit. I'm no Toyota expert, but the amount it was moving didn't look normal.

After reading several horror stories on here, I thought I would post to see if I'm overreacting.

Questions:
- Is this wobble normal?

- Is the crank pulley similar to a harmonic balancer, ie. does it wear out or get out of ballance?

- Is my previous problem related to this problem? If so, do I have a chance of getting Toyota to fix this?

- Even worse, is my crank toast?

TYOTA

Sorry to hear that man... About 2 months ago I had the same problem. I was noticing a vibration so I looked under the hood and noticed the crankshaft pulley wobbelin. I tried to tighten the bolt on the pulley with no results, so I decided to take it to the dealer... A tech I know took it all apart and told me the bad news. I hada a bad crankshaft. I guess the person that did the timing belt before didnt put the bolt in right and it caused the pulley to start vibrating.. This in turn caused the pulley to mill down the front of the crankshaft... They used some glue stuff for a temp fix and it worked fine, but they said it wont last for long..

I hope this is not what has happened to yours.. Good luck and keep us posted with the results.

snap-on

sound like the exact problem i had.

mine turned out to be this

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/show...lesson+learned

-it should have absloulty no wobble.
-yes it is related to your previous problem. i would be pitching a fit and haveing toyota fixing it on there dime.
-crank may or may not be toast. I had the crank bolt losen up on my truck and wobble loose. The crank pully wolloed out before damage to the crank. (hardened steel vs reg)

MTL_4runner

Visible wobble on the crank pulley is never good.....at the very least you need to pull it apart and inspect for any damage that might be causing this condition. Hopefully it is something simple and your crankshaft is damaged at all.

nrgetic99

Join the club....

... a master tech will use the correct tool when re-torqueing the pulley which needs 175 lbs feet.

Mine was done by a Mickey Mouse tech and it came off after 5k. They tried to blame the SC. Eventualy, a Master tech who I had talked with a lot heard me getting PO'd and came in and told Manager that this is the result of bad workmanship....

That dealership ate a new short motor as the crank was damaged beyond repair.

David

bmwpower

Great. So what should I do? Bring it back to the dealer? I have documentation of what was done before and why the bolt was loose the first time.

bmwpower

I don't want to touch the thing yet in case I need to take it to the dealer. If I start taking it apart, they might blame me. This car has been only serviced by the dealer.

nrgetic99

I had mine trailered in..

David

MTL_4runner

If you want to make them accountable for any damage, then I totally agree, don't touch it, have them do all the work and document everything you can. Once they find major damage they will try to squirm like heck so you'll probably need to put the screws to them to get what you are entitled to. Don't hesitate to bring in a lawyer if you need to. I really feel bad when this stuff happens to people and it's the main reason why I still do all my own work (I can't stand dealing with the dealer and their screwups) since the time lost is alot more valuable than the money spent.

mt_goat

Are you talking about the 5VZFE because I thought the torque spec was 218 ft-lbs?

nrgetic99

Excellent point. The last one I did was my 3.0 on the 93 and I am stuck in 3.0 mode. I am one of the wierd people who wnt backward.

3rd gen, 3rd gen , 4th gen , then 2nd gen and now 3rd gen again

Of course, always check your manual for torque settings.

And if you do (I used alldatapro.com to which I have a license) it states 250 Nm and 184 lbs ft and not 218 lbs ft or 175 lbs ft

David

MTL_4runner

Close, it's 217 ft-lbs (295 Nm) from the FSM.

mt_goat

Yeah appearantly there was an older spec that was lower, but after Toyota had some problems with the crank bolts coming loose from the factory on early 5VZFEs they went to a higher torque spec (or so I was told). My 2001 FSM shows (I just looked and I was off by 1) 217 ft-lbs.

nrgetic99

Same as in the other thread, thanks for the update.

I still think I have a copy of a page from the 98 FSM that still says 184 lbs ft.

Perhaps the reason folks have problems after dealer visits is the confusion.

Thanks again for the info... I am planning on having to do a belt soon as I am at 130k so due for my second.

David

motoracer47

just to throw this in, probably its what everyone else is saying but just in case. it could be the outer ring of the pulley that the belts ride on. that ring is rubber mounted to the actually crankpulley, and if the tech used the wrong puller, he could have damaged that rubber bond, and the outer ring could be coming off. this happend on my roomates g20, before he bought it, the timing belt was replaced, drove it about 5-6k miles, then the outer ring broke off while driving. when it first started, he said he was getting an engine vibration at certain rpms, then it went to all rpms, then it went bang and broke. again, very slight chance thats what it is, but the symptoms are similar.

MTL_4runner

What mileage did you last do your belt?

Reason I ask is that the original spec was every 60k but the belts have been redesigned to go 90k now so you probably have a little while to go if you did your last T-belt change after 1999.

bmwpower

What? I had my first belt replaced at 60K (in 2001). Are you saying the belt I currently have (installed in 2001) will go for 90K? It would have been nice for Toyota to tell me this... Anyway I can tell from the part number which one I have?

bmwpower

Just got off the phone with my lawyer...

I'm going to go back to the dealer and complain about the wobble and explain to them the history of the problem. He said to speak to the Service Manager. I'm going to demand that I see the crank shaft surface once they dismantle it. If they fail to take the blame, he said to go to another dealer and get a second opinion. He said I need a "professional" evaluation, not mine, in order to take this further. If the second dealer says I need a new short block, I'm taking them to court.

The one frickin time I thought I was doing the right thing by taking the truck to the dealer.... boy, was I frickin wrong. I broke my own rule. Never again.

MTL_4runner

Yes in short. The service interval was 60k on the earlier belts (for 96-97) and it seems Toyota erred on the very conservative side since belt technology (esp belt cords) was not as good as it is now. Later in 1998 they bumped up the service life to 90k as belt technology evolved. If you look at the part numbers for all years of 4runners, Tacomas or T100s with the 3.4L now, you'll see the belt is exactly the same. If you go to the dealer they will tell you what the original spec was (ie if you have a 96-97 they'll say it should be done at 60K, 98-02 they'll say 90k service interval....some will even tell you 60k even if you have a 98-02 ). In reality, there is no reason to change any before the 90k interval provided that on a 96-97 you have changed it at least once already after 1998 (it's actually 1998 not 1999 as I mentioned above, but I'd still use 1999 just to be on the safe side) which would likely be true on 99% of the vehicles out there. Don't expect the dealer to tell you this stuff though since it goes against their bottom line to give you unbiased advice.

GSGALLANT

Yeah. Same here for my 2002 FSM. Some pages that show pictures of the crankshaft bolt (like the components page in the water pump section, for example) have the incorrect (or old) value of 184 ft-lbs listed, but if I look at the components page for the timing belt, then the correct value of 217 ft-lbs is listed.

Then, in the torque spec section (same page as shown by MTL_4runner earlier) for my 2002 FSM, it says 213 ft-lbs.

It looks like they corrected the torque value in the obvious locations (and still got some of them wrong), and missed some of them altogether.