Massive oil consumption (was: Valve Stem Seals)

[Petros]

do not waste money on the keeper tool, a magnet is all you need. The spring compressor is one to use, or you can rent one for free from Autozone (you do not need them very often). Make sure you have the cylinder you are working on at TDC, and fill the spark plug hole with a soft cord or rag before you move the piston to TDC, to prevent the valves from dropping into the combustion chamber.

Cheapest place I found valve stem seals was to order them on-line from the NAPA website, and have them delivered to your local NAPA store. I got 8 for $8.80, no shipping charge. Cheaper than Rockauto even without shipping.

When we did your compression test, it indicated it was all the valves that caused the leakage. That is why the oil consumption is such so baffling, it did not use nearly that much on my drive up from Californa.

If you really want to make the engine top notch, you might consider removing the head and have the valves reground, and it is easier to replace the valve stem seals as well. It will restore power to the engine, and improve the fuel economy. It will only cost you a little more to do this, but it is a major job to pull and replace the head (probably about 4 or 5 hours worth of work, if all goes well).

[irowiki]

I figured between the two old cars, maybe a third one someday, and a potential engine rebuild I might as well buy the tool for $14 shipped!

Rockauto had the stem seals for 84 cents on wholesale closeout, so I bought 19 a set for both cars, and some to spare! Bought the water outlet housing gasket and some wholesale oil drain plug gaskets for the sedan so shipping ended up being cheap overall.

We were considering buying another head, redoing it, and then swapping that, but I am unsure of the state of the piston rings! Will just do the stem seals first, should be a good learning experience!

Yeah the oil consumption kinda freaked me out, it was a bad omen when we stopped in Lynnwood and there was no oil

In another news, turns out the engine in the wagon is 85-88 vintage, 80-84 used a bigger oil drain plug, 85-88 used a smaller oil drain plug! I wonder what else is different.

[Petros]

that was a crate engine, an imported low miles engine. which is why the oil consumption is so strange, it should have low miles on it. engines that sit around and not driven much will get the rings gummed up, which is what might have happened here. with the seafoam, and regular running and oil changes, it should free up the problem with the rings. So you are down to valve stem seals, the blue smoke on start up is usually an idicaitons of valve stem seals. They are cheap, so other than the time spent no great cost involved. It is worth having a valve spring compressor if you will be doing your own engine work, but the keeper tool is just silly to me. I have worked for a fully sponsored professional race team and we never used a keeper tool, I have never felt I needed one in 40 years of working on engines. I do not even know of any repair shops or machine shops that even have them.

Getting a used head somewhere cheap, and than rebuilding it is not a bad way to go. PicknPull you can get them for only about $40 or so. I recommend buying new exhaust valves, but the all the seats and the intake valves could be resurfaced and reused. Usually a machine shop would do that for you. Not really any practical way to do that at home.

[keith]

I agree on the exhaust valves, but for the intakes and the exhaust valve seats, I have used a little valve lapping compound (course and fine) and a drill to seat those. Start with the course compound on the valve face, drop it into place, chuck up the stem in the drill and pull the trigger while pulling up on the drill. Repeat with the fine, then go on to the next valve. Works fine, lasts long time.

I had an old Maverick (71) that I took into the hobby shop on base. It only had about 80k on it but the valves were so bad it barely ran. I got one of those $50 rebuild kits from Sears (rings, rod bearings and gaskets) and a set of exhaust valves and I did that to the head, put in new rings with only using 120 grit sandpaper to hone out the cylinders and everyone there though I was nuts. Anyway, I was only going to keep it a few months, ended up keeping it for 6 more years and 70k miles and it never burned a drop of oil or missed a beat. Never pulled the block out of the car. 200 cu in I6.

[irowiki]

Ah, I thought the keeper tool was a replacement for the valve spring compressor.

So how do you get crate engines these days anyway? I was looking around the internet and found nothing.

[keith]

The term "crate" engine used to mean brand new, surplus engines from the factory. Nowadays it seems to apply to anything that can be put in a crate. That can be new, factory remans, JDM engines or junkyard engines.

JDM engines are Japanese domestic Market engines. When I lived in Japan in the mid 70's, new cars did not require a safety inspection for the first 4 years. After that, they had to have a thorough safety inspection every 6 months where the car was completely torn down and reassembled. The cost of a safety inspection would typically run about half the cost of a brand new car, so basically all cars were junked after 4 years, it was not economically feasible to keep them any longer.

At that time, the typical car in Japan accumulated about 10k km per year or about 6k miles, so an engine from one of these cars would have about 24k miles on it. What a great deal, right? Not so. Consider it took me over 3 hours each way to get from my housing unit in Yokohama to the ship in Yokosuka, a trip of only 7 miles, imagine the amount of wear and tear on that engine for those 7 miles. BTW, Japanese drivers are very aggressive so the driving is a lot of stop and go, and go means full throttle.

I bought a little 68 Datsun SSS (510 sedan with an HP motor) from a junk yard with 40k km on the odo and in three years, I put another 28k km on it. You would not want that engine, it burned a quart of oil about every 100km by the time I sent it back to the junk yard. It was well past "worn out". The transmissions are a good buy though, they spend most of their life in first and second gear. Engines, clutches and brakes take a beating over there, or they did back then anyway.

BTW, the military could get a safety inspection at the base for $1.25 and they didn't tear the car apart, just checked the brakes and lights and let you go.

[Petros]

Japan has been designing and building cars for the US consumer since the early 70's. 80 to 90 percent of their world sales were in the USA. there has been a good bussiness of entrapanures contracting wrecking yard is Japan to ship their engine, and even transmissions here for resale. The engines and trans are so durable that getting one with only 20 to 40k miles on them means they were in "like new" condition. Unfortuantly what keith says can sometimes be true. Most Japanese car owners take good care of their cars because it costs to much to own one, however there are some that figure if they have to replace the car in only 4 year, they do not spend any money on maintenance, they might just top up the fluids (if that). Usually the imported engines are a great buy, about $400, which is less than a good rebuild would cost you to do yourself. All the ones I have had experience with have been good engines. But I have heard you do occasionally get a bad one, the importer warrants engine for just such eventually it, and I think many of them test run them.

I suspect the rings on this engine are just gummed up however, because the compression is actually pretty good on some of the cylinders, and the car sat around for like 4 years only getting run occasionally. Miles on the engine has no relationship to the condition of the seals, they get hard and brittle with age, no matter the miles. In fact with the engine not running they seals would not get oil soaked and might be more prone to drying out and cracking.

The problem with finding an imported engine for a car this old is that all of the cars that used this engine have be gone from Japan for many decades. Occasionally one might show up from sitting in a warehouse, but it means it will needs a flush, new seals and possibly new soft plugs in the block, and hopefully the rings and bore will have no rust in them. So at this point it would be difficult to find a low mile imported engine. You an get parts however, and a rebuild is a safer bet. If you want to tweak it to improve performance, than that you have to do yourself. I doubt there are any engine builders that would take on a Tercel 3ac.

[ARCHINSTL]

I doubt there are any engine builders that would take on a Tercel 3ac.

Here is just one: http://www.autopartsfair.com/toyota-car ... utochannel
I have a Jasper Mitsu 2.6 in my '88 Dodge/Mitsu p'up, and have been happy with it for 9 years.
Jasper has changed its catalog, so I could not get into it. At least as of a few years ago, it still had 1 or 2 3ACs In stock.
Tom M.

[Petros]

clarification: That comment was in regards to building a performance 3ac. You no doubt you can find someone to rebuild a stock 3ac, but if you want to teak it for more power, than you will not likely find a performance shop willing try it. They should advise, as I would at this point, do not bother, do an engine swap if you want meaningful power output.

So if you want a performance rebuild, to get more power out of it, you are on your own (with advise from this forum of course!)

[Gottolovem]

I tried to find a import engine earlier this year found nothing.
I did however find a place in chico ca. Rising sun engines they found me a used runner they bench test all engines they sell and warranty for 6 months. The price was 450 or 495 I think so I bought one from them installed it fired right up passed smog first try overall very happy. I did pick it up to save on freight.

[Petros]

wow Tom, I just followed the link you posted: $1427.00 for a rebuilt 3ac!!!

Edit: I just checked shipping and core charge: to get one of their engines to my town would be a whopping $1825.!!! and I would still have to install it.

I would do a performance rebuild, long block, and ship it to you for $1500. if any one is interested. or you can do it all yourself using local machine shop for about half that.

[BrownBadger]

Hey Petros. How much for you to build a performance 4AC?

[Petros]

About the same, I just need to find a good rebuild able core engine, all of the parts and machining are about the same. I do not have a lot of time right now, but perhaps by the end of the year.

[keith]

FYI, if you look for a 4AC engine, a 4ALC is the same engine, it was used in the Chevy Nova version of the Corolla. That is actually what I put in my Tercel before the accident.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/83-84-85-86-87- ... 77&vxp=mtr

http://www.ebay.com/itm/84-85-86-87-TOY ... d0&vxp=mtr

Each seller has two engines for sale.

[irowiki]

The 4-ALC was used in the front wheel drive corollas too according to car-part.com!