And Boom Goes the Head Gasket

Well, I think it finally happened. Try as I may to head off any issues that might cause an HG failure, it went kaput. Naturally it happened on our way to the airport. Was driving along and a sudden 'poof' sort of noise. Instant loss of power, thick white smoke coming out the tail pipe. I might have heard some other noises, but I got really distracted trying to get a family of four off the highway and to the airport as quick as possible. It had made it twenty or so miles to the airport with no strange noises and the temp was dead on normal.
It had started running a little hot a few days prior and the coolant was somehow low despite the ground underneath being clean. I filled it back up. Yet, I suspect that was a sign of things to come.
So now it's sitting on the curb with a dead battery because the tow company left the key turned to 'on'. Plan is to run compression check then give Blue Devil HG repair a try. Hoping this will allow us to limp along for a little while and also let us run the engine and listen for other noises so we can have some confidence in the HG being the only problem. If the HG is the only major issue, then the plan is to find a good shop and have them replace the HG and check the heads. Part of me really really wants to just pull the trigger and start working towards the 5vz swap, but I have neither the funds nor the time to jump into a project like that. My wife drives the 4Runner and needs a car.

 

Hopefully you didn't warp the block in getting off the highway. God luck in getting it fixed.

 

STATUS UPDATE: Called Toyota, the head gasket recall had been performed. Should've asked year and mileage, might do that later. Got a new battery from Autozone since it was still under warranty, gotta love Duralast gold. Pulled all the plugs. They all looked alright except for a very slight oil coating. Pulled the air intake for plug access and there was coolant in the throttle body. Not sure how that got there, I assume EGR.

Ran compression and I seem to have the smoking gun. Did the LH bank and then when I went to start on the RH I noticed what looked like coolant that had splattered from cylinder 1 and was pooled a little near that plug hole. Sure enough, every cylinder put out at least 130 psi except for cylinder 1 which struggled to make 40 psi. I guess next step is reinstall plugs, put in the head gasket repair fluid, top off coolant, and see what happens.

Is cylinder 1 a common place for the HG to fail? I thought I'd heard it was 6, which made sense because of the crossover.

 

Sorry to hear it man. Sounds like the worst possible time for it.

I opened your post specifically to see if you had discovered a failure on cylinder 6, which I too have read about. Was surprised to see otherwise.

Keep us posted on your findings. Good luck man.

 

Well I tried once, I tried twice, and it seems that whatever is broken is beyond the capabilities of Blue Devil. Next step is to find a shop. If anyone has any recommendations in the Salt Lake area that specialize in old Toyotas, let me know.

 

No good man.

Let us know what they find. Unfortunately know nothing about the Utah area.

 

Well the guy I got a quote from for the work also offered the swap. $3k for the head gasket, $7k to swap to the 3.4 all parts included. Roughly the same timeframe. God that's tempting. Thoughts?

 

If you have the money, I would do the swap. Do you have to supply the 3.4?

 

$3K seems like a lot of money for a head gasket replacement. A quick search shows options for a 3.0 rebuilt long block for under $3K.

 

No, he's got a rolled 2000 with 160k on it. I asked the 3rd gen forum about this but got zero replies. Is the 3.4 really worth twice the money or would I be happy with my $4000 and new head gaskets on the old 3.0?

 

Well, we're in it now. The shop I'm working with got me a 2002 5vz with 163k on it. 8 years newer and Almost 90k fewer miles. Should have my truck back on the road by the end of the month. I can't wait to see how a 3.4 in a 2nd gen drives.

 

Sounds great. Let us know once you get it back.

 

Id really like to know how the swap went and how many $$$$ the final bill was.

 

I'll post once it starts and after it's done. I put done the deposit on parts and they're still waiting on ORS to fabricate the harness. The preliminary total for parts, labor, and taxes is looking like $8200.

 

How much for ORS to fab a harness?

 

Here are my expenses for my conversion done in 2020-21. It was done by a private individual in S. Colorado. Have had no issues. Just got the CV axles replaced yesterday and also had to do some custom adjustment so that the 4-wheel drive would finally work. He said he was amazed my wheel had not fallen off given condition (lack thereof) of the bearings in the axles.
The Million Dollar 4Runner 1995 3.0 to 3.4L swap

 

That's about what I've been quoted. I put the parts deposit down a month ago and they've been really bad at communicating so who knows when this will get done. I hope soon.

 

Hmmm, I wonder how much more a LS swap would be. Lot of 80 series guys go that route.

 

This 1/2 LS looks interesting.

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/blueprint-engines-four-cylinder-crate-engine-ls-head

 

Really cool, but I’m surprised it doesn’t have a forged crank.

 

Could be because it was designed to run at low rpm.

It's definitely interesting.

 

Even the lowly 22RE has a OEM forged crank and that is certainly not a high rpm engine.

 

I don't know about cost, but I would worry about fit. The shop I'm working through was working on a 1UZ swap into a 2nd gen and they were having a hell of a time cramming it in there.

 

One of the great things about the LS is it's relatively small physical size for it's displacement. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the LS is physically smaller than the 1UZ.

 

Well it only took 3 months, but they have finally taken in my 4Runner and start work on it this week. Despite wanting to see the donor car and explicitly telling them I need the VIN, I was told when I got there "Well gee, I wish I'd known that three days ago when it was on the trailer cuz it's been scrapped by now." Not off to a great start. Anybody know if the VIN can be found on the block?

 

Alright, the day has finally come. It is ready for pickup. Gonna hop on the train tomorrow and go get it. We'll see how this goes.

 

Well, the 4Runner is back with me. Lots to tell.

So the engine seems to run great. Was hard to tell driving home because I needed to fix the clutch master cylinder back in January before all this happened and it had gotten so much worse, so driving it home was awful. Had the new MC sitting at home so I swapped that in and it was driving like a dream. Other than that I've had to get a few problems sorted out, chief of which is the emissions. The registration is up at the end of May and I can't get the evap to finish. I found they had mixed up a couple of plugs for the evap and had left an opening on the plenum unplugged, so hopefully sorting out those two issues fixes the problem. It was running a little sputtery at idle, but plugging that opening on the plenum seems to have sorted that out.

The AC was uncharged, but they warned me about that. I think they had to use the plumbing from the 5vz and that's why. But they told me that I would need to buy a retrofit kit to mate with R134. Only after finding the retrofit kit didn't fit did I look it up and Toyota phased out R12 back in 1993, so not only did this new engine not need retrofitting, neither did my old engine. I am less and less impressed by this shop the more I peel back my new onion. Anyways, went to charge it and a big bang came from near the radiator. Sure enough, the low pressure pipe running into the condenser blew off. Come to find that they mated the pipe but never bolted it down. No wonder it didn't hold pressure. Got a new bolt, charged the system, and tried it again this morning and it's still blowing cold, so it seems that's fixed. Thank god cuz it's getting hot.

I also lost cruise control. The throttle body they sourced didn't have the hookup for the cable and they fed me some line about the new harness being incompatible and other stuff about it being a headache to get working with the new engine. I think they're full of crap. The more I look into, the more it seems like cruise control doesn't interface at all with the new engine, harness, or ECU other than the cable on the throttle body. Assuming they didn't take the cruise control computer, I think I should be able to just take a 3vz cruise control box and hook it up to the throttle body and have cruise control again. Naturally, they ripped out the cruise control actuator and cable then told me it was lost to a bin in the back when I asked to have it back. So I'm going to work on getting a replacement (I'm kind of sick of dealing with these guys and I live an hour away so it's almost not worth it) and if I can get that cable hooked up somehow, I think I'll be in business.

Lastly I had lost 4wd. I checked the wires going to the transfer switch and they looked fine (I've had to replace that and the new harness interfaced there so it made sense to look) . I texted the guy all this and he said "That wire just turns the light on the dash. It should be working." I texted him back bullshit cuz that wire also talks to the front diff and engages the ADD. "Oh, well maybe the switch went bad." No it didn't m***********, it's only a couple years old and worked when I handed it off to you. I left him alone because they weren't going to be any help. Start digging around and turns out they hadn't hooked up any of the vacuum lines coming from the ADD. Cool, easy enough fix. Turns out they had also not hooked up any of the vacuum supply lines going to the 4wd servos. So I got some vacuum line, plumbed it in to another vacuum line, and alakazam! 4wd was working again. Like I said, less and less impressed by their knowledge base over at that shop. Either that, or they are lying to customers to get out of doing work. I suppose to their credit, the 4wd system was working perfectly from an electrical stand point. I suppose the least I should expect of them is to hookup the harness correctly.

Anyways, now I'm off on my 3.4 swap journey. Who knows what fun new adventures I'll find along the way that should have been addressed by the shop. I'll be sure to update with anything new.