So I'm driving home from an overnight trip to my cabin, The freeway is down to one lane with almost blizzard conditions. I was going roughly 45-50 mph and 1500-2500 rpm. just taking it easy since plows haven't been on the road for a while. I notice that my engine starts to sound a little higher in pitch than normal and within 30-60 seconds i'm not holding speed, gas isn't responding, rpms are dropping to zero and that's it boys, my engine died. I coast over to the side of the freeway into about 6 inches of snow and stop. Terrible smell like really bad semi brakes, then it's gone as fast as it showed up. I'm about 3/4 of a mile past an on-ramp to the freeway so if needed i could hike back to a gas station or something. At first i thought i might have lost a belt or ran out of gas (considering the fact that our gas guages aren't the most accurate thing in the world and maybe mine finally just quit.) No warning lights came on before this happened, so i turned to the key to the acc position and my temp is ok, and now they're all on like usual. Belts all look ok, it wanted to crank over again but just wasn't happening. At this point I decide to go back and get some gas but nothing. now close to an hour later, it doesn't want to even try to turn over now, and makes a bad grinding sound. I'm thinking maybe a timing belt/chain, perhaps the nosedrive on my supercharger? hopefully nothing worse than that.... I can put together most anything, but I'm not as good with engines as I'd like to be. Putting on the S/C, changing the knock sensors, etc... that's no big deal, but diagnosing something on an engine has always given me grief.


so what do you guys think might be wrong? any info i left out that might help?

 

Oh man, that doesn't sound good at all.

First I would see if you can put a socket on the crank pulley bolt and turn it over. If not then remove the belts to make sure the ascessories are not siezed up and preventing it from turning over. I would then start pulling spark plugs to see if that helps it to turn over.

Can I ask if you had any fuel mods?
Did it ever throw a CEL?

 

plan on doing that today. It's sitting at my local shop right now. Just as i got it out of the canyon they decided to close it, so i'm just glad it's not sitting on the side of the road....

 

sorry to hear this....I don't have any suggestions as I am not too motor savy myself.
Good luck and keep us posted

 

Nose drive is seized....

 

OUCH! It could have been worse, but ow.


How many miles were on the S/C? Did you buy it new or used? If used, was it reconditioned or did you have the nose rebuilt before you installed it?

Check with Magnuson before you let anyone local work on it.

Do you still have the old intake manifold and all? Can you pull the S/C, send it out for repair and still have your truck running?

I think I still have my intake manifold... lemme know if you need it and we can work something out.

 

Mark- I've still got my intake, so if needs be i can return it to stock, but thanks anyways.

I got it new, but pieced it together over time. I've got around 10k miles on it. I just got off the phone with Kevin at Magnusen and I'm going to yank it off and take a look at it and perhaps send it back to them if needs be.

 

Cool Allen... Keep us all in the loop!

 

will do.... this sucks!

 

I can't believe that the nose drive siezed after only 10K. Keep us posted, and maybe pics if they show what happened.

 

I'm going to get it back and start taking it apart tomorrow, and i'll take some pics

 

Even though I know it stinks, I'd take a nose drive seizing any day over the motor grenading......you should consider that lucky. I will be curious to know if the nose drive was full of oil or not when this happened. Definately post some pics when you get that disassembled.

Is it a 1st or 2nd gen S/C?

 

My camera is screwed up, so i can't take pictures right now...

It's a black 2nd gen charger, when i installed it, i made sure there was enough oil, etc.. before i put it on. When i pulled it off the main housing i was expecting some oil to drain out (still mounted on the runner) but nothing came out, it has oil residue, but it was pretty much dry. I put it on in Feb. and it was just fine. The seal between the nosedrive and housing must not have been tight. THe bearings and impellers, spin freely and have no binding. Called Magnusen and they agree that i lucked out and just have the seized nosedrive and there's no need to send in the charger. I'd assume that the high pitch i heard was the pulley seizing and the belt spinning around the now, not moving pulley.

I'm waiting to hear back from Even (Northridgetoyota) since he will get us 25% off.


I'm very happy that it's nothing more than that, all sorts of bad thoughts and dollar signs have been running through my head...

 

glad to hear you found the solution.

i was about to call dibs on your rims

good luck allen.

 

lol

 

Well i heard back from Evan, I got a new nosedrive, and two belts, figured it was a great time to buy that spare belt. $187 shipped to my door.


Even rocks!

 

Nice!

 

My baby is up and running again! I just finished putting her back together. Evan (Northridgetoyota) really came through, I'd recommend him to anybody. I knew I'd be asking for trouble if i tried to fill the nosedrive with oil while it was on the vehicle, so I took it off. While i had it off i took out the impellers and they and the rear bearings look just fine, they spun freely, but just wanted to make sure. Everything else seems fine, so I'm good to go.

Oh yeah, Driving around in an Acura for the last two weeks, really makes it seem like my 4runner is massive! It feels like I'm sitting a good 3 feet higher....