Qualified

Hi all,

I am new to the forum. I was referred here from the RX Second Gen forum. I have an 04 RX 330. My wife was driving it and it was overheating it and unfortunately she didn't notice until it blew the motor. I am faced with a dilemma, do I rebuild it or do I swap it with another motor? I don't have the knowledge to do this myself, and not even going to pretend like I do. I saw some engines on eBay, but not sure if I should get one there or if there or somewhere else. I am looking to basically get this car running again.

Could you guys help me with the decision? I got a quote for $2500 to rebuild it by a friend of my brother, but I know you guys here would probably give me much better advice. I also got a quote from a bargain place in jersey that would do a swap for a couple hundred more, but I think I could get them down to about the same amount. The shop does look a bit sketchy, so I'm not sure. What do you guys think I should do?

Could someone recommend a person or shop that could take care of this?

Thanks so much for your time.

tenspeed

iTrader: (1)

It depends on how much damage your blown motor has. If it's just a blown head gasket, they remove the heads and mill them flat.

If there is piston & cylinder damage, I would swap in another motor.

aliga

iTrader: (147)

is it awd or fwd, i can get it done with an awd motor with 51k miles for 2500.

goohead

thats a good price for motor/install, i know places that would charge 2x that. if that comes w a 6/12 month warranty you should be all over that

i would do the following if i was you:

get warranty detail/exclusion in writing

have the shop guarantee a compression test after the install was done (very important if your just installing a used motor) and get a guarantee the motor compression will be within manufacture specs: they generally range from 160-190 psi depending on the motor, as long as they are within 10-15% range of each other around that range your good. if not then make them replace it with a good condition motor. get that in writing.

also would be a good idea to have them agree to let you be present for the compression test and read the # off the compression gauge itself instead of taking their word for it, i would ask for that in writing too.

if you cant the compression then you can do a cold leakdown test before they even install the motor, use 100psi and even cold should not be more than 10% air lost. out of throttle body means intake valve, out of exhaust means exhaust valve, out of oil fill tube means rings, a little leak is normal but high % means worn engine. these values should be within 10% of each other as well.

flush all the coolant passages prob at least 1-3 times, it has been sitting on a shelf somewhere for a while. i would just run distilled water first 1-2 fills and drain it out with the flush before i even start to drive it.

fill w/ rotella straight 30w desiel oil, even if your not breaking anything in, after sitting for a while its good to use a oil w/ higher zinc and phosphate content to minize wear. i would do the first 1-3 oil changes quick few hundred miles after install, just to flush out w/e was in there.

prob a good idea to get the timing/waterpump/oil seals on the engine while its out if you can get a good price on it, since its alot cheaper than doing it w engine installed

gl man hope this helps

Qualified

Hey guys,

Thanks so much for all the advice. i have decided to not do anything with the car at the moment, but i will take all this into consideration when I do. i expect to be getting the job done within a month (i hope) but I just want to make sure that take care of some more pressing matters first. If anyone else knows, how long can i have the car just sitting like that? Would it make anything else get messed up? I don't want one headache to turn into a few.