It is out:







Going back it will be more "fun".
Long day. I will write up some tips / procedures tmw if anyone is interested.

 

Nice, on the way back in take the rad out. There is a lot of room in front of the engines on these but it's still easy to damage the rad

 

No need to remove radiator. Put a cardboard on it if u want. Do drain oil (of course) and remove the oil filter housing. That thing sticks out too much.
This car has overheated and cracked up the block. With the exhaust removed, when I hand cranked the engine, water / coolant shot out from the exhaust ports. That means coolant sitting inside cylinders.

 

I am curious. Does anybody rebuilds these engines with appropriate warranty? Jasper, or some other reputable outfit?

 

Brain dump here for what I can recall...
Primary goals are 1. to remove two top bell housing bolts and 2. to find place to bolt for engine lifting.
This is where Lexus instructions say:

So, removing the intake allows access to 2 bell housing bolts and installation of lifting bolts. I wish I had ET fingers. Removal of 2 bolt is the most difficult step..Drain oil and remove oil filter housing. It sticks out too much when engine is hoisted out over the radiator.
Remove 2 wiring harness off the tranny first. One left side, one right side. They go with the engine. No need to disconnect 2 hoses to the front tranny cooler. Loosen 2 brackets attached to the block and bungie it away.
To remove torque converter bolts, need to remove sway bar, then right side heat shield (u will deform it), then exhaust manifold (no need to remove alternator nor engine mount nor its bracket), then starter (there is a 10mm nut + the obvious 13mm nut holding the 12V cable), then 6 torque converter bolts.
The wiring harness is a pain in the butt. Warm up the connectors with heat gun in low to soften up so that u don’t break the clips. The connector for alternator is reachable by hand but u cannot see it.
I did not disconnect AC hoses. Removing the AC compressor and let it drop. Of the 4 bolts, the upper rear one is painful to reach. I don’t thing I will reuse it.
On the driver side, remove the steering intermediate shaft (two 10mm bolt), remove the shield (u will deform it), remove exhaust (after u drop the AC compressor, u can reach all nuts), then u can remove the top nut of the engine mount.
U have to have an engine hoist leveler to control the tilting. U have to jack up the tranny so that it is inline with the engine. You have to jack up both engine and tranny before separating them, to clear the engine mounts, then u can lift out engine.
Hope this will help whoever will take the challenge.
Now, let see if I will get the car running in a week or 2.

 

I did a search, found $7540 plus shipping $300 for reman.

 

I know of one local engine shop doing 1UR-FSEs, but afaik it was like 1 or 2 engines done ever. I don't think rebuilding it is very difficult, definitely easier than some european ones. But sheer amount of parts and hours usually renders rebuilds non feasible.

 

Comment deleted, redundant

 

You could install the starter but I have seen a compression checks done without the starter, with a couple of guys just turning the engine over using the crankshaft pulley nut. One guy used an air wrench, since most of them have enough power to turn an engine over; and I've even seen it done by hand! (Naturally the results are not as precise, and I wouldn't want to be the guy whose job it was to turn the engine over! But if it's the only way you have, better than nothing, I suppose.)

 

No air ratchet or impact that I have ever seen could turn an engine over, maybe a 1 inch drive might but you would also never maintain the minimum rpm for at least 4 compression strokes...about oops a couple hundred rpm.

 

Thanks for the thread!
@DEREKC How long did it take the pull the engine? I have an 08 wiith 244K that just blew #2 cylinder. I found a good used engine for $800. But shops in the area want $3200 to R&R
I have swapped engines before and have the space to do it but want to be sure that I am not in for a mess. I have time and tools but would it be worth it?
My 08' is clean and about a year ago Lexus replaced the interior for the recall. Car is clean.. and I replaced the entire suspension right after that. Worth fixing IMO.
Advice?

 

Prepare as much as u could and start early on a Friday after work, then u have a weekend to take engine out. Spend the whole week to move things over. No short cut. Make sure everything is done right. Replace the engine mounts (OEM people say but I used aftermarket.) I can't tell u how long. It all depends if u have the right tools, right parts, skill and determination.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I found a junk yard that was 40 miles away that had two used motors. One was from an 07 with 150K miles for $650 the other was from an 08 with 104K miles for $800. They are charging me $1500 to do the work. I took a look at both engines service history on the lexus site and the 08' had 5K mile services since day one. Both have good compression and come with a 90 day warranty. I went with the 08. Dropped it off on Tuesday. They checked the compression of my engine and found that cylinder 2 had zero compression. They started work on the swap and said it should be done by Friday. We'll see.
I'm pretty impressed that I was able to drive the car with 7 cylinders over 150 miles. I was 110 miles from home when it first lost compression and the 40 miles to the yard.

My engine was burning oil for 50,000 miles, figured it was only a matter of time. The last trip we made before the cylinder went she got 25.4MPG. Even with only 7 cylinders she was still get 21MPG

 

Update... junk yard had the car for 3 weeks. First engine they put in had an issue with the timing thst they couldn't fix. Had to pull it and put a second engine in. Picked it up today and it runs great. Only issue was they forgot to charge the AC.. all.else is fine. The gave me a discount due to the time it took so it ended up costing $2100 total.

I am really happy i had this done instead of junking the car. I was getting very expensive quotes of almost $4k just for labor..

 

give it couple hundred miles, then check for oil leaking, change oil + filter, and check for codes with scanner.