Bought Paul's Vibe for my son as his first car and potential first challenge car. Drove a few hours to pick it up.
Excited is an understatement!
The car was a known non runner and comes with the high RPM 2ZZ Toyota engine packaged in Pontiac compact car styling.
We checked the oil and water, pulled a plug to see how old they were, and tried to start it. And tried, and tried, and tried. We eventually got an couple of coughs and kept trying until it started. It had a pretty nasty knocking sound so we shut it down. I proceeded to youtube detective the sound and decided it was possibly timing chain guides, vvt noise, oil pump, or rod bearing. We pulled the valve cover and found a a reasonably healthy top end and what looks to be intact timing chain guides.
That left us to explore bottom end problems. Fortunately the oil pan is pretty accessible so I set the boy child to work on pulling it.
First step-shiny oil.
Next we have shiny smudgy oil pan.
Then we get chunks in the oil pickup tube.
And then, we find our culprit.
I expected this to be a project so I'm not upset with what I found. Now I have to decide our next steps.
Looks like the same one. Following with interest.
In reply to Stampie (FS) :
Yeah, that one. I assumed timing belt (oops, didn't read up and see its a chain). I figured when I decided to buy it that in the worst case it's an engine/trans donor for one of my MR2's. Those go for more than the purchase price of the car even needing a rebuild. Even if I go full rebuild my son gets a really thorough introduction into how engines work. So I am not upset-just need to decide a path.
So I can get a reman crank with bearings for $340 shipped.
Or I can get a new crank with bearings for $611 shipped.
Rockauto full gasket kits including headgaskets are sub $100. Timing chain kits around $100. Oil pumps around $100 shipped. Nickles and dimes adding up!
In reply to MrJoshua :
Are you worried about bearing material in oil passages?
Well, I am disappointed this wasn't easier, but thrilled that you got it. The look on Jonathan's face was priceless!
Considering the purchase price was less than the value of the tires, I'm pretty sure you can bring it back to life!
Glad to see you are making good progress!
Stampie (FS) said:
In reply to MrJoshua :
Are you worried about bearing material in oil passages?
It needs pistons out the top and crank out the bottom so I am going to pull it completely. I haven't done much in the way of rebuilding engines so I will gladly take advice along the way.
I've got the same car in Matrix form, and will be following along. Also, doing a barnyard/covid miata engine rebuild, and will help as I can. Get it pulled apart, and clean, clean, clean. It'll tell you what you need.
2ZZGE!
Boy child pulling his first engine. He did 98% of the parts removal required himself. Proud moment for sure.
Separated engine and trans packed in for the night. Thinking we make pick up a running JY motor and refresh this one for one of the MR2s.
A few weeks worth of updates in the next few posts:
Junkyard engine acquired!
Unveiled for its driveway debut:
Supposedly a few miles less than the one it's replacing. Fingers crossed.
Love it!
After seeing that picture, I can’t call him boy child... he’s bigger that I was till my mid-late 20’s!!!
Glad for ya that his into it!!!
03Panther said:
Love it!
After seeing that picture, I can’t call him boy child... he’s bigger that I was till my mid-late 20’s!!!
Glad for ya that his into it!!!
Yeah, he is already bigger than me. Looks like he has more to go before he is done too.
We realized the new motor was a late '03 instead of early like the car and had an had an egr manifold with an extra port above every exhaust port.
We wanted to use the old intake, computer, etc., So the ports had to be plugged. We copied the monkey wrench racing $10 kit with some 3/8" x16 plugs and the appropriate tap and loctited those boogers in.
In reply to MrJoshua :
Good job. So the original engine will be a rebuild project for one of your many MR2s?
MrJoshua said
Yeah, he is already bigger than me. Looks like he has more to go before he is done too.
How old is the young gentleman in question. I assume he's already eating you out of house and home?
At this point we needed to mate the engine and transmission and decided to use the original motors clutch/pp/flywheel package. When we got behind the flywheel we found a leaky rear main seal. It was bad enough that ignoring it until later wasn't an option. At this point it was Friday Oct 2nd and the challenge is looming . Unfortunately nobody had it in stock. Our wrench time is mostly weekends and we only had 3 left. O'reilly's was the only auto parts store who could even get it within a few days time and that was post weekend. Saturday morning I decided O'reilly's was our best option and we would do the best we could to make progress in some other direction. I called to order and the lightbulb went off! "Where are you getting it from?" It turns out they had 1 in Jacksonville. Time to introduce the boy to driving too far to save too little money but saving the extremely valuable commodity of time. The 4runner hates the Interstate so the wife's WRX got the call. Unfortunately I forgot my mask lives in the 4 Runner when I'm not in public and we ended up at o'reilly's with me lacking a mask. Fortunately my girls make sure my wife's car always has more masks than seatbelts and I just had to settle for being pretty to get our part.
It turns out I put some stuff out of order. Saturdays 4 hour round trip to pick up a $10 rear main seal got us a free Sunday to wrench instead of waiting on parts. That's when we discovered the EGR ports. Sunday was spent putting in the rear main seal and cleaning an engine and transmission. It was Tuesday before I could find the tap and plugs locally and plug the EGR ports. The rest of the week was rain, school, work, and lacrosse.
Saturday the 10th brought clear weather and some free time. we bolted the engine and trans together, bolted on the exhaust manifold (slight problem there), and dropped the engine in.
There was a valuable lesson in false economy during the installation. We put the easy mounts in first because, well, they were easy. It turns out the rear mount will never go in last. Never ever ever. So 3 easy mounts went in, 3 easy mounts came out, 1 hard mount went in, 3 easy mounts went in again. An important lesson for sure, but not the best method to save time.
11GTCS
Reader
10/16/20 7:46 a.m.
MrJoshua said:
It turns out I put some stuff out of order. Saturdays 4 hour round trip to pick up a $10 rear main seal got us a free Sunday to wrench instead of waiting on parts. That's when we discovered the EGR ports. Sunday was spent putting in the rear main seal and cleaning an engine and transmission. It was Tuesday before I could find the tap and plugs locally and plug the EGR ports. The rest of the week was rain, school, work, and lacrosse.
Saturday the 10th brought clear weather and some free time. we bolted the engine and trans together, bolted on the exhaust manifold (slight problem there), and dropped the engine in.
There was a valuable lesson in false economy during the installation. We put the easy mounts in first because, well, they were easy. It turns out the rear mount will never go in last. Never ever ever. So 3 easy mounts went in, 3 easy mounts came out, 1 hard mount went in, 3 easy mounts went in again. An important lesson for sure, but not the best method to save time.
Awesomeness. On the plus side, I'm sure he's picked up some useful new vocabulary... 
I feel this in my soul. My first car was a non runner with possible small issues keeping it from running. A ultra low budget rebuild at 15 with a FSM in hand and some hand tools I drove it for years with no issues post rebuild.
After fighting with the motor mounts because of my ineptitude I tried harder to guide Jonathan on a logical progression of tasks to finish the engine install. Everything went well with the AC compressor, power steering pump, alternator, etc., until we got to installing the serpentine belt. Basically the belt we were sold was 18mm too short and the tensioner uses an aluminum "nut" to rotate the tensioner enough to allow you to slide the belt on. I leaned too hard on the nut trying to make the belt fit, and snapped the nut off. That cost us 3 hours between compressing the tensioner shock without a nut anymore and figuring out the belt was too short. In the end we got the right belt and managed to compress the tensioner shock and install the belt. The rest was hoses, plugs, wires, nuts, hood, etc. Wow Toyota hung a lot of stuff around and off of the airbox lid.
Ladies and Gentlemen: She runs!
I'm glad you guys replaced the engine. Rebuilding WHILE you drive the car is much better. Also, then you'll have a spare 2zz
