I was on my way home from work, getting ready to turn into the driveway, and all h$ll broke loose. all the dash lights lit up, so i turned down the radio and heard a horrible noise. I shut it down and coasted into the driveway to check the damage. the crank bolt had come all the way out and was sitting on the skid plate. the pulleys had backed out to the point of hitting the fan blades. im sorta releived because it sounded like a rod knock from inside the truck, but...

i'm not real familliar with yota engines. is there a keyway cast into the crankshaft that may have been damaged by this event? does anyone know where i can find a blow-up pic of the crank and pulleys?

i wont be able to tear this thing apart for a day or so, and im a little nervous about it.

 

forgot to mention its a 3.0

 

There's a keyway on the crank. I doubt it would get torn up based on what you described.

 

Hard to say what damage may have been done. You very well could have damaged your radiator also. If it were me, I would pull the radiator/shroud and take the pully off so you can get a good look at everythin. Check to make sure the treads aren't torn up on the crank bolt. When you put the bolt back in, it's a good idea to use a torque wrench but I remember it beeing just a shade under my max strength to torqu it to spec. Might use some red thread lock this time around too.

 

this exact thing happen to me and me and my dad ordered a new bolt from the dealership for like 8 bucks and then used thread lock and a big freakin lead pipe and torqued it back in really tight and this happened about a year and a half ago and it has never givin me anymore trouble. just let the thread lock dry over night.

 

i'm gonna tear it down tomorrow after work and see what's happened.

 

glad to know I'm not the only one, LOL. I have the bolt. It landed on the skid plate, and it's not damaged. I bought some 271 threadlocker, and I'm hoping for the best tomorrow.

 

181 ft/lbs torque if i remember right

 

well, i got er' tore down tonight.

the balancer is junk...

the timing cover is junk...

the crankshaft is junk.

I also found out today that this is a fairly common problem on yotas, and it also happened to my buddys taco with the 3.4, but he got buy with a new balancer.

 

Oh man that sucks. I'm gonna have them check that when my truck goes in to the shop on Friday, just to be safe.

 

the crank bolt falling out?? That is not a factory problem that I've ever heard about. Maybe your mechanic wasn't paying attention and didn't retorque that bolt down properly and didn't use blue locktite...

I've heard of that happening when other people did their own timing belt and then didnt retorque it back down properly with blue locktite. And those stories are what prompted me to REALLY bear down on the breaker bar and use a lot of lock tite...

 

I dont know if it was a factory problem or not. all I do know after talking to a couple guys at work is that there have been several toyotas towed in with the same problem, and my buddys was a 98 taco that had not had the timing belt changed yet.

on a side note... out of all the chevy and ford small blocks that I've installed harmonic balancers on, I cant remember ever using locktite, and I've nerer had one back out on me.

 

the GM and ford balancers are a press fit, GM didn't even drill the cranks for a bolt on the early small blocks

 

to my knowlege, toyota didn't use threadlocker on anything from the factory.

 

the toyota units arent? I couldnt tell because my balancer and crank are worn down quite a bit.

 

toyota is sort of a loose press fit. not tight enough that i'd chance it with no bolt though...i tapped mine in with a plastic hammer

 

well all i know is when it happened to me i fixed it with thread lock and alot of torque.
now everything is all good.

 

This isn't just a Toyota problem, it's a motor problem. Any crank bolt will fall out if it isn't tightened properly. It has the highest torque speck of any bolt on a car as far as I know. Screw that blue lock tight, go red all the way!!!

 

Your problem is the nut behind the wrench.

Whoever worked on it last didn't tighten it properly.

the ˟˟˟˟ doesn't just 'fall off'
some bonehead didn't tighten it, and you don't need loctite (not that it'll hurt anything if you use just a little.)