Here's what happens when you beat on grandpas 1997 3ES
02-27-11, 06:20 AM
#1
Driver School Candidate
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: NC
Posts: 35
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Here's what happens when you beat on grandpas 1997 3ES
Hi I'm pretty new here. This is my first new thread post. Just thought I would share my story, as I found it very interesting. I've been a mechanic my whole life and recently bought a 1997 ES300 from a kid who said it had a broken connecting rod. I thought this was odd (actually impossible) so I bought the car for very cheap, expecting to put a motor in it. It's all original stock, no wheels, paint or upgrades of any kind. One owner, 280,000 miles (extremely well maintained) until the kid got it. Not sure what he did, but I've got an idea!!!!
So I bought a motor and the car, and removed the motor and tranny as a pair in my garage. This car is designed to be able to remove both through the hood space, which is why I bought this car. Ever try to remove a transaxle through the bottom sub-frame on a garage floor? Don't!!!!! hahahaha.
I rebuilt the transmission, which someone had already done judging by the RTV on the oil pump housing and bolts. All it needed was a 50 dollar pack of clutch plates. All in all with gaskets and the clutches it was less than 150 beans to rebuild. I got a deal on a 50,000 mile engine from a wrecked Avalon (1MZ-FE of course) from a guy in Jacksonville, FL. I swapped all the intakes, new valve cover gaskets, intake and plenum gaskets (cleaned all the carbon crap out from the intakes), new timing belt, new rear main seal, new spark plugs, and a new rear engine mount.
Anyway, now comes time to dis-assemble the old engine to get the flywheel and torque converter off. Note that it is very hard to remove the TC bolts with a seized engine. This is actually before I started swapping intakes and what-not. So I pulled the oil pan and the lower block assembly, and to my delight (and horror), all connecting rods, pistons, cylinders, crank, bearings, etc. were all in place, clean as a whistle. No metal shavings or anything. So, I started on the top end. I removed the harness and the upper intake plenum, and I found an exhaust valve in it!!!!!! Holy cow! I personally have never seen this, and I was shocked. There was also about 3 billion metal pieces riddled about the inside of said plenum.
So I removed the intake manifold (lower) and the spark plugs, and it was pretty obvious what cylinder started the whole wreckage. #3. So I removed that valve cover and cylinder head and found that one exhaust valve and one intake valve had broken off and fell into said cylinder!!! Awesome destruction. So there's the start of the grenade that killed the engine. Please see attached pics for a laugh. I'm currently trying to find out how to make the pics show up in the posting instead of attachments. Enjoy!!!!
Anyone ever see a Toyota engine fail like this? This is my first Lexus, but I've been driving Toyota's of all kinds for about 15 years, and it seems it would be really hard to do something like this. Thanks for reading.
So I bought a motor and the car, and removed the motor and tranny as a pair in my garage. This car is designed to be able to remove both through the hood space, which is why I bought this car. Ever try to remove a transaxle through the bottom sub-frame on a garage floor? Don't!!!!! hahahaha.
I rebuilt the transmission, which someone had already done judging by the RTV on the oil pump housing and bolts. All it needed was a 50 dollar pack of clutch plates. All in all with gaskets and the clutches it was less than 150 beans to rebuild. I got a deal on a 50,000 mile engine from a wrecked Avalon (1MZ-FE of course) from a guy in Jacksonville, FL. I swapped all the intakes, new valve cover gaskets, intake and plenum gaskets (cleaned all the carbon crap out from the intakes), new timing belt, new rear main seal, new spark plugs, and a new rear engine mount.
Anyway, now comes time to dis-assemble the old engine to get the flywheel and torque converter off. Note that it is very hard to remove the TC bolts with a seized engine. This is actually before I started swapping intakes and what-not. So I pulled the oil pan and the lower block assembly, and to my delight (and horror), all connecting rods, pistons, cylinders, crank, bearings, etc. were all in place, clean as a whistle. No metal shavings or anything. So, I started on the top end. I removed the harness and the upper intake plenum, and I found an exhaust valve in it!!!!!! Holy cow! I personally have never seen this, and I was shocked. There was also about 3 billion metal pieces riddled about the inside of said plenum.
So I removed the intake manifold (lower) and the spark plugs, and it was pretty obvious what cylinder started the whole wreckage. #3. So I removed that valve cover and cylinder head and found that one exhaust valve and one intake valve had broken off and fell into said cylinder!!! Awesome destruction. So there's the start of the grenade that killed the engine. Please see attached pics for a laugh. I'm currently trying to find out how to make the pics show up in the posting instead of attachments. Enjoy!!!!
Anyone ever see a Toyota engine fail like this? This is my first Lexus, but I've been driving Toyota's of all kinds for about 15 years, and it seems it would be really hard to do something like this. Thanks for reading.
Trending Topics
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
