crazymac680

Day 20 3 hours I'd decided to order a new exhaust manifold as I'd damaged a bolt hole on mine. It arrived today and it was the wrong one. It seems the 2005 2.4 is a different manifold from my 2002 2.4. Mostly the same apart from a slightly different angle where it joins the exhaust and those two bolts are in a slightly different place. So I was forced to repair my own. I filled the hole with weld. Then drilled and tapped a new thread. Actually went quite smoothly. I then had to remove 3 cut off bolts from the heat shield. 2 removed and that will need to do🤣. Installed the manifold Filled with oil Filled with water. Installed battery. I'd planned on turning over with the fuel pump disconnected but I was too lazy to find the fuse. She started on 3 quick key turn. Hunted for about 5 seconds and then purred like a kitten. Let it get to temperature and fans kick in. Kept checking the water. Turned her off and checked all the levels half an hour later. Took her for a spin and she is driving like she hasn't been off the road. I'll add up the hours and my final thoughts in a couple of days🤣

Day 19 1 hour. Cleaned up the sump and reinstalled. Then installed a new oil filter. If my new exhaust manifold comes tomorrow I might have her running.

Day 18 1 more hour. Managed to get the sump off. Installed the air box. Tomorrow I'll try and prepare the sump surfaces for reinstallation.

Yeah that sounds good to me. Get it up to temperature and then drain it. My big worry is that timing chain cover leaking. It was so complicated reading how to apply the sealant. Taking that cover off again would probably have me calling it quits🤣

Day 18. 1 hour. Just a quick bit of work today putting the drivers side engine mount and top mount on. Finally I can remove and seal my sump again. It needs sealed since I removed my timing chain cover. Got 2 oil filters and enough oil for 2 changes. I plan to do a quick oil change to remove anything that made it's way into the engine during the work. Haven't decided how long I should leave it yet. Tell me if you have any good logical reasons to change at 5 min or 1 month?

Get a head gasket test kit from eBay. Steel seal got me about 500 miles before it started losing water again. At least it got me back home.

Morning! Good luck with the job when you get going. I'll got a couple of workshop manuals. One is for the RAV 4 with the same engine. Thats nice and easy to read but not everything seems to be in it. I've also got a Japanese manual that has everything but is a bit harder to use. http://fsm.japanclassic.ru/toyota/2002.5_7a037_alphard_anh1,mnh1/x339/index5.html Open in google chrome so you can use google auto translate. You click the 2az link on the left. Then click the top link on the right in blue. Delete _base from the address and then hit enter. Google should then auto translate the whole page. I spent quite a bit of time finding the right sized taps and drill bits. Much cheaper than buying a full kit. I'll give you a link to what I bought if you need it. Probably best to research it though as it would be easy to use the wrong size.

Day 18. 5 hours This morning after 2 hours work I was in a online meeting and my boss told me I was on holiday🤣. I was delighted to get out and work on the car in daylight. I started with the belt tensioner. It was a mix of jacking the engine up and down to get better access. The manual tells you to put the E10 torx in first but I found it best to install the pulley then the tensioner to the pulley and finish with the E10 torx on the bottom of the pulley. I couldn't make it work following the manual. I then did the water pump which was faulty straight forward. Alternator is a little tricky with the long bolt and hard to reach bolt underneath. Power steering pump really stressed me out. Really tough to get it back in position it's mount was really tight. Made harder be my air box resting on it's pipes not allowing it to fully enter the mount. Eventually managed to lift my air box and get a bit more slack and got it closer to position. Then I had to squeeze the massive mounting bolts in. Top one is the worst. Even with the engine fully dropped into the subframe. The top bolt didn't clear the inside wheel arch. Had to give it a couple of love taps with the hammer. Then use a wobbly joint on the ratchet to tighten it up, through the pulley. Fitting the was tough. I really struggled to pull the tensioner with my tool and then use my free hand to get the belt on the pulley. I ended up fitting the on all the pulleys and putting it on the alternator last as it was easiest to reach. Air box went on ok. 5 bolts from the top. 2 from the bottom. The hard bolt is the one next to the throttle body. Mount the bolt to a long extension and socket and feed it in to the hole blind. Rocker cover was nice and easy. Installed it with the new gasket. New gaskets also installed on the air box and chain tensioner. Think I forgot to talk about that. I tried various tools to get the release switch on the tensioner but couldn't get it. Then seen a video saying it can be done by turning the engine anti clockwise. This worked. Really tough day but finished feeling pretty good Lpg rail and spark plugs next. I don't see how a garage could make profit on this kind of work charging under £2000? It's a battle🤣

Day 17 2 Hours Felt like big progress today. I've been dreading using silicon gasket but think it went pretty well. Started the day with a failed attempt to remove the exhaust bracket bolt with my new induction heating tool. Looks like I'll need to weld the bracket back together. I needed to jack the engine up quite high to get the timing chain cover above the power steering pipe. I did a few test runs to make sure I could get the cover onto the engine without ruining the gasket. I installed the water pump first but then removed it as I needed the extra space. It says to install the cover 3 min after applying the sealant. It took a bit of study and preparation to get my head around all the different sealant widths. Cover on and all bolts torqued to spec. Timing chain tensioner and water pump next I think.

Day 16. 1 hour. Cleaned up the block in preparation for the timing chain cover. Noticed the pink powder around the bottom of the water pump. So decided to replace it. Very easy to remove. Just 5 10mm bolts.

Day 15. 2 hours. Another good night. Slow and steady progress. Cleaned up the timing chain cover. Getting it ready for gasket sealant. I had to drill out 2 studs from the cover. Tonight I installed 2 helicoils to keep the bolts the same size as the originals. I really struggled to remove the crank oil seal. I had to very carefully cut it with the hack saw. The new one went in by hand. I then dialed in my timing marks and installed the chain guides. Tomorrow I'll hopefully clean up the engine and install the timing chain cover.

🤣 Yeah most of the work was removing the timing chain cover

Day 14. 2 hours. Another successful night regardless of the 40mph wind and showers. Luckily mostly sheltered by the house. Put the block to TDC. Cleaned up the camshafts as there was some rust starting to form in the followers. Oiled all the surfaces. Installed the camshafts and torqued the bearing caps to 9nm for the small ones and 29 for the big one.

Day 13 - 2 hours So I spent a lot of time waiting for parts. When I was ready to install the head bolts. I realised that the new ones didn't come with washers and I'd thrown away the old😂. Didn't want to risk buying something similar and decided to ask Toyota. It was about £2.50 per washer but £28.99 delivery! I emailed asking them if they could get me a better deal on the delivery but after 3 days I had no reply. So I ordered from Amayama. It took about 3 weeks but only cost £16.90 inc delivery! Great service. I spent the first hour checking that my holes were clear or debris and oil. Then confirming that my holes were deep enough. Gave the head and block a final clean. Fitted the gasket and head. Greased the washer and thread of each bolt with engine oil. Torqued to 30 - 42- 55 - 70. In the order in the images. Final 90 degree turn in the same order. Feel like I'm on the home straight. Time for bed now.