carlover

Hello everyone and happy new year!! This is my first post to the site and I'm hoping to get some insight into a call I just got from my mechanic while he is changing my timing belt, water pump and cam/crank seals on my 2000 Lexus es300.

When I took my car in this morning to get my timing belt changed at a Lexus specialist, they mentioned we should change the cam and crank seals while in there, and I agreed as I'm not sure its ever been done. A couple hours after I left I got the dreaded 'we ran into a problem' call saying the bolt on the oil pump was already stripped (I have no idea how...) and he has to order a new one since he can't drill it out...apparently its part of the oil pump assembly which needs to be removed while doing this??

Since this is a new mechanic and I've never worked on the oil pump or replaced the cam/crank seals I'm in a 'trust but verify' mindset. After researching online I've not found anything saying one way or the other if the oil pump needs to be removed to replace these seals.

Any expert advice or insight into the matter is appreciated as I now have to use a rental car while they wait til tomorrow to get the new oil pump in...

Thanks in advance!

Gregz_IS

No real need to remove oil pump to replace the crank seal. Althought they do publish the replacement procedure both ways (oil pump off engine and oil pump still mouned to engine)

They may have removed the pump to replace a leaking oil pump body gasket that couldn't be seen until teardown. (rare but it can happen)

Typically you just pop out the oil seal from the pump body and use a seal driver to install the new one. No removal of oul pump needed.

How it got stripped is anyones guess... maybe they don't own or know how to use a torque wrench??

Torque specs.

10mm bolt 69 inch pounds
12mm bolt 14 ft lbs







.

LeX2K

Sounds to me like the mechanic is full of it, or removed parts he didn't need to. There is no reason to mess with the oil pump at all, it is not a part of a timing belt job on these engines.

Something suspicious is going on.

carlover

Thanks for the help

So I'm there now waiting on my rental car to show and he clarified that the last guy to change the timing belt broke a head off one of the tensioner bolts (apparently there are two, a front and back bolt) which screws into the oil pump. He said he can't get the broken bolt out, so he has to buy a new oil pump - apparently it's part of the housing... I believe he said it's the back bolt which has the broken head and that I am lucky the tensioner didn't break off in the last 100k miles since it was put in...

Does this sound feasible? If so, I'm calling the last mechanic to change the timing belt and having a chat about this as I seriously doubt the bolt head fell off on it's own

yeskay

how many miles on the car. what prompted for the change of the crank seals etc. was there any leaks that they showed it to you. Even lexus dealership do not recommend changing the seals if there are no leaks as part of major service.

carlover

Now that I've talked to the mechanic and seen the broken bolt in the oil pump assembly (pic attached) I have more info and feel a good bit better about the situation. He showed me how the bolt appears to have been broken off into the assembly. He said he'd rather replace the oil pump assembly than start trying to get the bolt out. I guess I'll keep the old one and try and tap it out myself, then keep it for a rainy day in the pile of stuff in the garage I shouldn't have



I have 310k on the car, and yes I have leaks. He showed me how the cam was leaking everywhere and I feel I have trusted and now verified.

I know some people disagree with replacing perfectly fine but worn parts 'while I'm in there' philosophy, but I put a lot of miles on my car and need it up and running so I like to get it all done at once so I told him to knock it out along with the water pump which was replaced at the 100k but not the 200k mark...so I feel I can happily retire it This will leave me time to work on motors I enjoy (like my 73 CJ5 and my 73 Honda CB450) without the pressure of getting it back on the road without check engine lights.

Thanks for the support guys...did I miss anything? It looks to me as if that bolt was broken ages ago, not by this mechanic. Now I guess I just need to send my last mechanic this pic and see if he has anything to say about this oil pump and the broken bolt...any thoughts on that?

Gregz_IS

Now I guess I just need to send my last mechanic this pic and see if he has anything to say about this oil pump and the broken bolt...any thoughts on that?[/QUOTE]



And this will accomplish what??






.

carlover

Well Gregz, what do you think? I wanna see if I can trust the old mechanic, maybe he will own up to it - or am I just an idealist to think people can own up to their mistakes when confronted.

Along the lines of your own question, what did you expect to accomplish by asking me that?

BradTank

If you want my opinion, your mechanic was trying to get some additional unnecessary work and screwed the job up, stripped the bolt and is trying to blame it on some imaginary former mechanic to get you to pay for additional work.

Do you have any records that the oil pump have ever been serviced in the past? That's the only way this bolt could have been stripped, and there's really no reason for a prior mechanic to have ever replaced it (or this one for that matter) It's not a regular service item to pull and replace an oil pump, and it's not necessary to to the job he quoted you for.

The whole thing sounds shady to me, especially since you took the car in to get a timing belt changed and now you're replacing an oil pump.

carlover

Oil pump has not been replaced but the timing belt has been 2 times before this (car has 310k miles). I was told this bolt is one of 2 for the tensioner mount and could have been broken then... are you saying this is not true? If so, please explain.

I know this all sounds shady, but it sounds possible to me that one of the bolts which holds the tensioner in place was broken at the head, but left in place for 100k miles since it actually held the tensioner in place. Anyone with enough experience on the 3.0 V6 ES300 to speak on this?