Diesel Woes!

[steve in stockport]

I'm currently working on our Toyota Rav4 trying to cure what I thought was a blown head gasket, slight misfire at tickover and blowing oil from the filler cap.

The Toyota 2.2 D4D engine is apparently a piece of crap that Toyota aren't very proud of, in fact it's that bad that they were doing engine swaps under extended warranty up to 100,000 miles or seven years old for cylinder head gasket failure and as luck would have it ours is too old to qualify. They also insist that the engine and gearbox have to come out to do the job and want the best part of £1000 in labour fees just to get to the stage where they can say whats wrong.

So I set about having a go myself and the brief version is two of the diesel injectors were seized into the head and until they came out the cams couldn't come out which in turn meant the head bolts were inaccesible. And then the cold weather came and it all got put on the back burner. Fast forward to August and after not touching the car for months I have finally got the injectors out and the head is now off the car.

Only I don't think the head gasket has gone, I think this might have something to do with the problem

 

 

That is a tarry mixture of oil and exhaust particulate that is admitted via the exhaust gas recirculation valve and has filled the inlet manifold and ports to such an extent that the inlet valves in number 4 cylinder look like they are not seating properly, allowing blow by and causing the misfire. There's no sign of head gasket failure, no cross contamination of oil and water and no warping of head or block so I'm hoping a good clean up, new gaskets and a cheat on the EGR valve will see it back on the road.

 

This is what a bit of time and a lot of nasty chemicals gets you

 

 

Then comes the saga of ordering new gaskets. The head gasket comes in five different thicknesses and generic head gasket sets all seem to come with the wrong thickness and there doesn't appear to be a dedicated turbo gasket set either. So I've had to order a generic full engine set to get all the bits and pieces, a decent quality Elring head gasket of the correct thickness and a set of bolts all from different suppliers at the cost of £258 - which is still cheaper than Toyota want an engine set minus the head gasket and then the head gasket and the ten head bolts that they want £12 a piece for.

Hopefully it will be back up and running in the next couple of weeks, then there's the brakes that will all need looking at and the small matter of the MOT.

[Bob Tucker]

YUK!!!

& diesel engines stink really badly once you open them up.

Well done Steve.....following the Hoody philosophy to the full!

[kevin the chicken]

Hells teeth that was a mess. I'd heard the same as you about that engine, somebody I know was thinking of buying one but was warned off by the local garage who had earned enough money already from them!

[steve in stockport]

It didn't smell too bad when I opened it up, but the oil is horrible black and gets everywhere.

When it all goes back together I'm going to do a cheat on the EGR valve. The ECU expects to see a set amount of air either through the air flow meter or the air flow meter and the EGR valve, so if I just block the valve off it will throw up a fault and go into limp mode. So to fool the ECU you block the feed from the manifold and then cut the pipe to the EGR valve and fit one of the aftermarket crankcase breathers and then when the valve opens it draws in clean fresh air instead of exhaust fumes full of particulate, the ECU doesn't see a fault and hopefully a cleaner inlet tract.

[Guest peter2b2002]

you should get more power fooling the EGR valve, I've had a few diesel engines apart but never seen any thing like that mess you've done a good job cleaning that lot

peter2b

[Guest 2b cruising]

I had exactly the same fails with a Vauxhall cities a couple of years ago.

The guy I bought it from for a bargain £400 said it was piston rings.

On removing the inlet manifold it looked worse than yours.

It was caused by the plastic swirl chokes being bodged several times.

I removed the head, fitted new manifold and choke valves, replaced head and sold it on running brilliant foe £2600.

Yes I let the man think I knocked as much as I would off the £2800 asking price.

He is still running it now, without any further issues.

[Bob Tucker]

My redtop came from Ebay,, dirt cheap due to " big end gone"

Didnt bother me, it was to be rebuilt.

Guy said his mate had examined it & told him thats what it was.

Same mate also had a spare redtop which he sold him at a mates price.

Yeah Right!

 

As soon as I got it stripped, I found the head gasket was gone & perfect bigends.

[kevin the chicken]

Claire looked at a discovery which was for sale at 4800, but when her dad test drove it the auto box wouldn't change up. The garage engaged a gearbox specialist who said it needed a replacement box so they wouldn't sell it to us but Claire's dad persisted and got it for spares or repairs for 1800 pounds. He is an engineer and figured it might be something simple as he's done gearboxes before. Trailered it home and within an hour of it being off the trailer phoned us up to say it was fixed. Turbo waste gate was stuck open so the engine wasn't getting any boost so wouldn't change up. A couple of squirts from the oil can has got to worth three grand.

Kept it for two years and then sold it for 3500. The only time we've ever made money on a car

[Guest janis]

If its same engine as 2.2 avensis then its same as my lexus..just had it fixed last week and mechanick said he allready have changed 2 head gaskets on two cars recently..he said i better get mine sold while its still going..and its returning around 30mpg

Thanks god mine was easy fix..

[steve in stockport]

The Rav4 engine is now all back together and running well, MOT passed first time after some hard braking on the very long run to the test centre to clean the discs and pads up.

This morning I did the cheat on the EGR valve and everything seems to be ok, no faults coming up on the ECU so I'll run it and see how things go. The engine should'nt be sucking in all the particulate that it was before due this modification

 

The original pipe to the EGR

 

Buy a second hand pipe, chop it up and add a filter

 

Fit to the engine and no more nasty muck going back into the inlet

 

I'll keep the original pipe so if there are issues at the next MOT I can put it all back to standard to get through.

Edited September 28, 2015 by steve in stockport

[BigLee]

Good news Steve. Laura will be pleased she has her car back. Glad it wasn't a write off. That head looked horrid

[brumster]

I ripped apart a 2L Peugeot HDI lump once (to rob it of a crank) and the mess around the inlet ports was very similar. God awful invention, the EGR! Has convinced me of the importance of quality fuel and/or fuel additives on diesels, along with giving them a good hard thrashing every now and then

Edited September 30, 2015 by brumster

[steve in stockport]

Lee, she's jumped out of the frying pan and in to the fire. Now got a Golf GTD with all the recent scandal attached to it. Luckily it's a lease car and only tied in for another 12 months.