Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Hi there,
My 1fzfe has just clicked over 170k running petrol only. It does a mixture of around town stuff plus 3 or 4 long towing trips every year. It's had good maintenance throughout it's lifetime. The last 10k have seen a lot of oil consumption which I believe is typical of the valve stem seals on this motor.

I'm planning to do the seals without taking the head off but my question is what is the likely timeframe before I should be looking at recoing the head/valve seats etc??? Should I be doing this now or will I expect to get another 50 - 100k before having to look at that as well.

Thanks in advance.

Went to a mechanic to see how much to get mine done as it blows smoke at startup. 250,000 on the clock. They told me not to worry about it as it could be expensize outcome. You will have to reshim the valves which is the $$$$ part.

They said unless it is losing power or burning helps of oil not to worry yet.

if you dont rebuild it they will cost you big money as they burn out the seats .
have had 3 done in the last month and they all cost about $1200 to bath/reseat valves/set clearances/shave/and reasemble and new stem seals
then a vrs gasket set is about $300 and it took about 2 days at home to strip and refit
cheers jason

i forgot to say you allso need new head bolts and they cost about $90
cheers jason

Thanks for the replies guys,
How many clicks had those cars done tiler???

1 had done about 180 000 and the otheres about 225000 and if we had let them go much longer the valve seats would have been stuffed so i would do it when you can so ot dont cost you more
cheers tiler

Mate of mine is in a similar situation at the moment i think, horrible rattle at idle which is definately tappet (does the 1fzfe have tappets?) style noise.

from memory, 330k, on gas, anyone got a kerb side diagnosis? and given this thread im thinking it could be something delt with sooner rather than later...?

Also just wondering how much should a set of valve stem seals cost??? Just got quoted $345 from a Toyota Dealership, seems a bit out of control. Any alternatives.

Aftermarket are available, life expectancy might not be as good though.

Good luck with in car job.

We have done afew lately, with blown head gasket [as per normal] one of which we chnaged the oil to sythetic Valvoline, so you couldnt see the smoke, only smell it maybe, it improved the oil it consumed, as in dropped the amount it was using, and no smoke.

Did this with my own 80 as well.

I'm feeling a bit stupid but I'll be stuffed if I can work it out.

With the plugs on this motor buried down the bottom of shaft how do you get a tool in there to tighten up the hose to run the air through. It'd be same situation for connecting up a compression tester. Or there maybe a special tool to screw into the plug hole to connect in your air hoses.

Make your tool/fitting long. IM guessing you have to make it yourself anyway.

SIMMO84 wrote:Make your tool/fitting long. IM guessing you have to make it yourself anyway.

No I just bought one of the shelf Simmo...........without thinking of course!!!!
Its got an around 19mm hex nut with a 14 and 18mm fittings with O-rings to screw into the spark plug hole. That's got a rubber hose clamped onto it with air fittings on the other end.
I can screw it in by twisting the rubber hose but not enough to really compress the O-ring and seal the cylinder.

Id Just do it by hand as tiight as you can, the little bit of air that leaks out wont matter it will probably annoy you more than anything.

SIMMO84 wrote:Id Just do it by hand as tiight as you can, the little bit of air that leaks out wont matter it will probably annoy you more than anything.

Tried that, the air is pissing out and compressor going flat out to keep up. I'm worried the valves will fall through with it like that.
Gotta be another way...................

Hmmm fair enough. Enzed or pirtek would be the easiest but probably expensiveUnless you have access to an oxy to braize a couple of fittings together.....

break the porcelain out of an old sparkplug, braze a piece of tube to it then braze on an air line fitting. put the piston of the cylinder that you are doing to top dead centre stops valves from falling to far if they do drop(have done this without being tdc without problems). set air pressure to around 50-70 psi, (if pressure is to high may turn engine over, if its a manual lock the engine by putting it in gear with h/brake on) screw in the plug tube air fitting tool in plug hole and connect air line.

Just make sure you can braze properely. Dont want anything to break off in there.......

Just make sure you can braze properely. Dont want anything to break off in there.......

if the tube breaks at the s/plug end use a s/plug socket to remove or if other end then the tube should be long to grab with pliers. Because the sparkplug has tapered seat or sealing washer it only needs to be finger tight. shouldn't jam. have everything ready before you start, do one cylinder at a time and dont leave it with the springs off.

Yeah your right... getting late in the week

most pressure test hoses i have used have been fine, you can tighten the hose pretty tight, if that doesnt work try a a couple of different differnt sized o-rings. different spark plugs have different mating surfaces!!!
sometimes less pressure is better as it doesnt force the o-ring to strech and "blow out" releasing pressure.

Thanks for the suggestions gents, much appreciated.

No quick access to brazing, although that sounds like a good idea.

Changed to the o ring to one that I had that was a little softer although pretty much the same size. I can get around 30 psi in the cylinder with the compressor really ticking over though, seems to be enough to hold up the valve. Done two, only 22 to go. Getting to the rear couple of cylinders is going to be interesting.
Finding the oil seals to be very hard to remove, really glued in to the valve guide. Takes a lot of coaxing to remove and difficult without nicking the shaft in which the valve spring and guide sits.

Just thought I'd post I managed to get this done but not without a number of hiccups.
The pressure hose got stuck in the plug hole and I couldn't remove it by hand. I had to grind down the outsides of a socket to fit the plug tube and cut the hose to slide the socket into the tube. The socket was a tight fit around the hose and gave me enough torque to remove the hose.
On putting back together I couldn't get the thing started. Thought I'd stuffed up the timing somehow so pulled apart again!!!! Found no problems so put back together. Finally got it started but ran like a dog with lots of shit pouring out the back for around 10 mins. A decent days driving later and it was OK. Still not sure why it ran so bad on restart. Was thinking either my cheaparse compressor was pumping shit into the cylinder, fouling it up. Or maybe something to do with the lifters/cams needing some decent oil into them before they got going properly.
Anyways big improvement on engine running and virtually no more smoke.

floppinab that would of been because the lifters hadnt pumped up properly.