Worth trying to rebuild?
 

Younger buddy of mine neglected to keep an eye on his oil level after I mentioned a valve cover leak to him and he developed a pretty loud knock above 3k rpms.

I'm sure he spun a rod bearing or two. My question is, with the cost of used Motors for these things is it worth tearing a part and cleaning and replacing (oversized) after machining or is the result a similar price for just a chance?

We would do the work ourselves (other than the machining.)

Are you an experienced boxer motor builder? If not, slam a "new" one in there and call it a day

Also, valve cover leak probably didn't cause motor to take a shit

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The lack of oil caused it to die, the leaking valve cover caused the lack of oil.

Are the really that bad to repair? I'm not experienced with boxers but I do rebuild engines from time to time.

Sure, lack of oil to the bearings. A seeping cover won't lose oil fast enough to matter. I lost my motor with no seeping. Or leaking.

Those motors have a lot of parts. Tolerances are very tight. Shit Toyota technicians can't even do it right. That said, it's totally possible to do. But when you can get a motor for a few grand and have it pulled and installed in a day... I LS swapped mine instead of rebuilding

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They are more of a pain in the ass. If you pay someone make sure they know what they hell they are doing..

do you think you're better at repairing a motor than a toyota tech?

https://www.thedrive.com/news/26848/...-their-engines

because i don't think i am.

It's not magic. Look at step-8 here. If you're confident that, taking your time, practicing, you can obtain the specified results, do eet.

Manuals in my sig line and I'm sure the recall procedure is here somewhere. I'd do it in a heartbeat but I have old fart experience.

Worth trying to rebuild?
 

I enjoyed rebuilding mine with the exception of cleaning the original packing seal off. All total I probably have 24 hours simply scraping off packing. The rest of the engine is easy to work on. It’s crazy east to pull. Being a boxer it’s perfectly balanced on an engine stand. You can flip it upside down, right side up or any side without the stand trying to flip.

Applying the packing isn’t even hard, you just have to take it seriously. Too much is bad, too little is bad and in the wrong place is bad. The illustrations in the service manual (linked in post above) are vague but the instructions for the valve spring recall are very detailed. I rebuilt mine before the recall so I had to go off the service manual and mine came out fine. I had 87k miles when I rebuilt and today I have 121k. I drive my car like I stole it. It’s red lined ~10 times per day (literally). I also take several rarely used high gload off ramps in my daily commute which I probably run near 1g at higher RPMs. I also autox the car. Long story short, if I did a bad job it would probably have taken a dump by now. Most of the recalled engines that failed made it less than 20k before spinning a bearing.

I don’t think the Toyota techs are less skilled, they just don’t take it as serious as an owner would. They also weren’t allotted enough time for the job personally so they are forced to rush the job. They also aren’t doing a full rebuild so if any packing drops into the engine while cleaning there is no way to get it out. On a full rebuild you can flush the crap out of the engine with water after cleaning.

BTW, I am a software developer with no on the job experience rebuilding engines. I’ve rebuilt several engines and manual transmissions, just not as a profession and no official training.

I also debated replacing the whole engine VS a rebuild. All total I had about $2500 in the rebuild but I know what I have. I know I have a brand new short block. This engine has a history of bad packing from the factory (at least early builds did) so I felt like the odds of blowing up another used engine was higher than rebuilding with a brand new short block. So I rebuilt and don’t regret it one bit.

2500 to rebuild or 3500 for a used motor... By my count it's not worth saving a grand to scrape gasket for 24 hours. My time is worth more than that. There are obvious benefits and risks both ways. Hopefully this info will help OP make an informed choice

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My time is worth more than that too but my goal wasn’t to save money. It was to have a car I felt confident in driving the shit out of. I also enjoy projects like this. Not so much the scraping part but the rest was fun.

Sure. I rebuilt my civic a decade ago. It wasn't terrible, just took a long time. But I had no knowledge at all and no one to help. Did it all from the service manual. I did not feel confident I could rebuild this motor though. That's why I swapped the LS.

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I've probably mentioned this already but I have a feeling we would do well working together. I don't even mind the scraping part.


process > end goal = happiness :cheers:

LoL they SUCK look how many motors they supposedly fixed and they blew up.

If you like projects and enjoy then rebuild yourself. If you just want the car running again, just go the easier albeit more expensive way and get someone knowledgeable to do it. Overtime the money you spend will be forgotten, so many other things in life will require money that once it’s gone it’s gone.

I just put $800 into my 04 WRX to fix rust issues on the rear body where the suspension bolts to the body. I was hours away from the shock going through it. It sucked to payout 800 just to have the same car I had before. But 2 months later, all is well and I don’t even think about it, I just enjoy the car.

My Indian friends have some saying like “pay a lot you cry once, try to cheap out you cry over and over”. Similar to you get what you pay for. If you think you can do a better job and have the skill and time then do it.