Need your help.....again!

[stevo82]

My ep82 blew a head gasket between 2 and 3. I took it to my mechanic who replaced it, he also measured the head for warpage with a straight edge and couldnt see significant warp. Got the car back, ran OK for a few km's (20km max) but had a whissling sound at low boost. Then suddenly it all just went wrong, it felt like there was no boost although the gauge said it was still boosting, but only around 0.3 bar. Thought it was the turbo and replaced it with my working stock unit but it made no difference, also replaced plugs and leads but to no avail. So the symptoms are:

1. Rough idle
2. Easily dies at traffic light
3. No power
4. Spark plugs seem to stay black (not noticably wet though)
5. Car has this deep sound, like when u have a cone filter and open the throttle fully at low revs, that throughty sound, it has it under normal driving, sounds like that at any throttle position.

I checked the pipes, intercooler and intake mani for blockages but found none as far as I could see without removing the mani. Does anyone have an idea of what the problem could be?

(Also, is anyone familiar with the 2e Toyota motor? Are the 2e and 4e head gaskets the same? Seem to fit perfectly but not all the coolant passages that are on the head have holes on the gasket, so they are blocked. Some say its the same on the 4e gasket)

Would really appreciate your help, need the car fixed quite urgently.

Thanx!

 

[AdamB]

Are you loosing any oil or coolant? Burning any?

 

[stevo82]

Not sure, I'm not driving the car much as it really has no power. When I removed my turbo I found some water droplets in the turbine housing, not sure if that could be just normal condensate.

 

[dark_knight]

cause & effect

did you get to find out why the HG blew in the first instance..?

 

[stevo82]

Nope, the mechanic said its usually due to a warped head but he couldnt see any warpage. Could valve clearance be the culprit?

I had my head gasket replaced 6 months ago but the only gaskets I could find here was for a 2e engine. The cars with these engines are N/A so not sure if theyre strong enough to handle boost.

 

[starletgtturbo1]

is it smoking any? if so what colour? have you got a water temp gauge? does it stil rev ok?

 

[stevo82]

I havent seen any smoke and it seems to rev fine, it just doesnt have any power and misses when idling.

 

[mork]

Get a proper head gasket first, then see if the problem persists. No point covering some of the coolant ports with the wrong gasket!

 

[kieran.s gt]

if there no signs of headgasket gone then get timing checked.

 

[stevo82]

Yea I'm getting a compression test done today and will also check timing. I remember the last time this guy worked on my car he had the timing all wrong and the car wouldnt start, so I wont be surprised. Not taking my car to him again, took him 2 weeks to replace the head gasket!

Can someone tell me how u know when the piston is tdc on the compression stroke? I also maybe want to check valve clearance, downloaded the doc from this site explaining how but I'm no too experienced with this. Could mixing up the shims also cause these symptoms?

 

[stevo82]

I just took off the cover over the cam pulley and it looks like the timing belt tried to move off of the pulley. The one side of the belt is badly damaged and the cover is filled with belt debris. Thats probably the origin of the problem right?

 

[dac69er]

i would check the cam timing first and then check the ignition timing.

 

[stevo82]

Ok so Im checking that. When I rotate the crank pulley so its mark lines up with '0' on the cover, the 4e mark on the cam pulley is about 3 teeth past the little dot which is to the front side of the car ( I see there are 2 dots ), so should I leave the crank pulley on '0' and just move the cam pulley back until 4e lines up with the dot?

 

[AdamB]

I just took off the cover over the cam pulley and it looks like the timing belt tried to move off of the pulley. The one side of the belt is badly damaged and the cover is filled with belt debris. Thats probably the origin of the problem right?

If thats the case I would suspect that the timing belt wasn't tensioned properly when put on. It sounds to me like it's tried to skip some teeth. I would get the tension checked on the belt and check the timing with a timing light.

 

[stevo82]

I have to replace the belt as its badly damaged, but can I just move the cam pulley backwards 3 teeth when putting on the new belt so that the crank is at '0' and the 4e alligns with the dot?

 

[stevo82]

Ok so the cambelt guide thats between the crank sprocket and pulley was damaged and it in turn damaged the cambelt everytime it went round, and the timing was off by about 3 teeth. So I bent the guide back to as close as normal I could get it (couldnt find a new one) and replaced the cambelt and set the timing. After everything was put back I started the car and it idled nicely and sounded good. When I took it for a test drive it ran fine for about 100m and suddenly it lost all power again. Sounds exactly like it did before I replaced the belt, maybe even worse. Did the belt jump, is the timing out again? Why would it do that? I tensioned it like the guide said to .I took the cover off and the belt looks fine, will only know if it jumped again 2moro....

 

[mork]

When were the idler and tensioner pulleys last replaced? Could be one of them that's gone. And the belt tension has to be right, otherwise it will jump.

 

[stevo82]

I dont think they have ever been replaced. Last I heard the mechanic couldnt find those parts and had to use the old ones.

 

[mork]

They're a serviceable part that should be replaced with each cambelt change. You can get them from Toyota or online. If you search for Toyota Sera on eBay you'll find both and they're the same part (checked on toyodiy.com).

 

[dac69er]

if the idler and/or tensioner bearings are knackered they wont help at all and could cause the belt to skip. if you replace the bearings and the belt and time and tension it up 100% correctly you should have no problems.