paddlenbike's 2000 4Runner

[paddlenbike]

I made sure that was all on my list, thanks Dan. I forgot about the crank pulley bolt.

[paddlenbike]

Alright guys it took me a month to finally get all the parts together and find time to get this big project started. I am not known to be the fastest worker but it took me about 2.5 hours to get the skid plates off, the coolant drained and the supercharger off the top of the engine.



You can see that the starting point was pretty clean. For being an original 160,000 mile engine there really wasn't much in the way of an oily mess. I found some oil near the bottom of the engine in the vicinity of the oil dipstick tube, otherwise it looked pretty good.




I am finding that the valve cover gasket job is nearly as time consuming as the timing belt job. Most of that is taking the time to clean up the valve covers, install the spark plug grommets and mostly cleaning up and re-sealing the half-moon washers and the rear cam plugs. Today Mike stopped by and I put him to work cleaning my junk. Not really my junk, just polishing my nuts. Actually it was just my valve covers but in typical Mike fashion he did a good job.



Other than some initial confusion about where to place the FIPG on the half-moons and the cam plugs, the valve cover gasket job was fairly straight-forward. I simply followed Toyota's recommendation on where to put the FIPG, although I know some people add it in other places too.

Beyond the items I mentioned above and the valve cover gaskets, I also did a new PCV valve and grommet, new spark plug tube gaskets, new valve cover rubber washers, new Denso Iridium IK22 plugs and new Toyota plug wires. I will be cleaning the throttle body on reassembly. I'll leave the IAC alone because it's working fine and is reasonably accessible if it does foul up.

Everything internally looked really good.



As for the timing belt job, removing the crank pulley bolt (217 ft lbs) is often something people struggle with. I had no issue. I borrowed my buddy Stuart's cool tool he made to align with the pins in the crank and allows you to wedge it under the frame rail while you reef on the breaker bar. Worked perfect. All the timing covers, idler bearings, hydraulic tensioners, water pumps, etc removed relatively easily. I did fight the cam sprockets a bit. Even with Stuart's help, we didn't have the right tool to lock the cam sprockets into position while we loosened the bolt. He ran home and grabbed his impact wrench and it did the trick almost immediately. I don't own air tools but it goes to show that the impact action is invaluable at times.



I got the cam seals replaced as well as the crankshaft seal. The new water pump went back on. It's amazing, the internals of the original water pump look so new that I was afraid I would confuse the parts with the brand new one, it looked that good. Same with the thermostat--it was dated 2000, so it was original but looked completely fresh like the new one. Amazing.

I don't have the full day to work tomorrow but hope to get the idlers and hydraulic tensioner on, timing belt set with everything at TDC and start getting the front covers reinstalled. I plan to change the oil in the supercharger and may have to button up the front and the top of the engine another day.

[paddlenbike]

I got the job done this weekend, but not without doing the timing belt job twice. More on that later. I watched a bunch of youtube videos and read some write-ups on getting the timing belt aligned on the cam and crank pulleys, and it seems as though everyone struggles with this step, and now I see why. Essentially you get the cam and crank pulleys all lined up at Top Dead Center (TDC). Put the belt on, aligning the marks on the belt labeled left and right cam with the marks on their respective pulleys. When you attempt to stretch the timing belt on to the crank pulley, you can't pull it tight enough to get it on the proper teeth. It often goes wrong here. From the moment the crank spins the first time it takes up the slack on the non-tensioner side and now you're off a tooth. After three tries I finally decided to spin the crankshaft and purposely have the crank timing set almost 1-full tooth before TDC. That means you can easily get the belt on and by the time the slack is taken up, the timing is correct. I spun the engine over by hand several times and triple-checked the alignment of cam and crank timing remained correct.

Everything else went back together smoothly. I left the radiator out to make sure the engine fired up and ran normally. Except it didn't. It would idle very rough and touching the throttle would kill it. There was no check engine light but it showed a pending code P1300 for ignition igniter circuit 1. Because I had replaced the spark plugs and wires I thought I'd check that first. I swapped ignition coils around and after several tries it wouldn't run as well on the backup coil. Swap it back and it would at least idle. I thought I was on to something.

One thing I have left out of this discussion...when attempting to remove the crankshaft timing sprocket (photo below), one of the small teeth broke off. The crank position sensor is pointed right at the teeth. I googled how a CPS sensor works and most of them work by the sensor counting a reluctor (magnet) embedded in the sprocket. There's a spot cast into the sprocket where there are no teeth, so I came to the conclusion that was the location of the reluctor and that's where the counting occurs. I put it back on with 100% confidence it was okay.



After the rough idle thing happened, I walked away from it for the night. The next morning I did a google search on the crank sprocket and it didn't take me long to find a couple of threads where something similar happened to others. Replacing the broken sprocket with a new one resolved the problem. Toyota had it in stock, picked it up and proceeded to dismantle the front of the engine again. With my newly discovered trick of purposely setting the crank timing back one tooth, I was able to diassemble and reassemble the engine, get the radiator reinstalled and coolant flushed over the next 5 hours.

I learned a lesson here. If you're this deep into an engine and there's any question at all about a part, replace it.

Overall, the job was pretty straight forward. I watched some videos on youtube to see what I was getting myself in to, took notes so I would have an order and torque specs, and you guys helped me know what parts to replace in the first place. Just take your time and be sure everything is clean and properly torqued. Overall, not bad.

I need to replace the rear diff breather, change the xfer case, transmission and diff fluids, flush the powersteering, brake and clutch hydraulic systems with new fluids and change the oil in the SC (I forgot to do it while it was off), and that will conclude the maintenance sweep.

[Seanz0rz]

Been there, done that. I was one tooth off on my CRV and had to tear it apart. Dad did the same on our old 3VZ back in the day.

Glad it is back together. I tried to go through my receipts and nearly had a panic attack at the disorganization and cost of doing 2 vehicles only a few months apart!

[paddlenbike]

It's a terrible feeling when you turn the key for the first time and don't get anything less than pure perfection. I literally took a perfectly running vehicle and turned it to crap for a bit there...

The truck doesn't feel any different but happy to know it should have no trouble going another 100k.

I spent a good deal of time figuring out all of the parts needed and the applicable part numbers. Rather than re-invent the wheel you can find all of the parts for a timing belt job and a valve cover gasket job here: https://kit.com/paddlenbike

(Similar site to what you guys have probably seen for my van build.)

I got the oil in the supercharger changed last night. Next up, power steering, brake and clutch fluid flush.

[YotaFun]

That is interesting that the tooth broke off the timing sprocket. Also another thing people tend to do is install that sprocket backwards that causes a bunch of issues.

Another tip for everyone on the timing belt install. What I have done on the several timing belt jobs I have done is removed the top idler pulley. Once you have everything lined up, usually you can get the pulled to sit close enough and run the bolt in slowly and it pulls everything nice and tight.

Again. I am very jealous of you California folk. I wish my engine bay and engine looked that good!

[Seanz0rz]

Again. I am very jealous of you California folk. I wish my engine bay and engine looked that good!

Nope, that is just Ken's (Mike's looks like this too). Mine always looks like the bathroom in Trainspotting.

[4x4mike]

Nope, that is just Ken's (Mike's looks like this too).

As clean as that engine bay looks I hate to be the barer of truth.





I'm with you. I could not believe something like this came off the engine of something owned by Ken. If I wasn't there to help remove the valve covers I would have thought these were staged covers and something he got off of Craigslist as a joke. The covers cleaned up really well and very quick so I'm sure the grime was placed that morning but it was fun to stop by and help for a bit.

[Seanz0rz]

The power steering pump always releases the schmoo all over the front of the engine, and once the bolts loosen up and oil starts to seep out, game over for keeping it clean.

[paddlenbike]

As clean as that engine bay looks I hate to be the barer of truth.

Mike spilling my dirty secrets...

Glad I took the time to replace and reseal those cam plugs.