Smokes Liek a steam Engine

shnazzle · June 19, 2013, 18:59

Quote from: "Wabbitkilla"Jeez mate, those are worn out!
Replace them and the car will run far better s;-) ;-) s;-)

Oh aye!! They're WELL worn. But new ones are in the post.

Judging by the state of these and the air filter...this hasn't been touched in 3-4 years.

GSB · June 19, 2013, 19:16

Echoing the above, those plugs are utterly borked.

They appear to showing signs of overheating, and they have gaps you could could drive a bus through. The correct gap should be what, 1.1mm? Given that the thread pitch is 1.25 mm its clear you have far more than that. The voltage required to fire those plugs will be astronomical.

shnazzle · June 19, 2013, 19:22

Quote from: "GSB"Echoing the above, those plugs are utterly borked.

They appear to showing signs of overheating, and they have gaps you could could drive a bus through. The correct gap should be what, 1.1mm? Given that the thread pitch is 1.25 mm its clear you have far more than that. The voltage required to fire those plugs will be astronomical.

Good stuff!! I'm guessing the little electrode thingamajig has just worn so much that the gap is now massive.

Surprised it ran, judging from your comments.
How did it even get the voltage to run these?

mrzwei · June 19, 2013, 20:11

Don't know how many miles the car has done but those plugs have probably done all of them s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

Even if you just cleaned them with a wire brush in an electric drill and re-gapped them (just tap the electrode one something solid and don't worry about the acute angle) the engine would run better.

They all have worn consistently and they all (assuming the last one is the same) are a similar colour. This is rather dark which may point towards running a bit rich or maybe oiling but it doesn't look excessive and there is no 'rogue' cylinder

I'd do what you plan to do, put the new bits on and then see how it runs. At least you will have eliminated a few areas of doubt.
The results of the compression test will be interesting.

shnazzle · June 20, 2013, 10:30

Quote from: "mrzwei"Don't know how many miles the car has done but those plugs have probably done all of them s:lol: :lol: s:lol:

Even if you just cleaned them with a wire brush in an electric drill and re-gapped them (just tap the electrode one something solid and don't worry about the acute angle) the engine would run better.

They all have worn consistently and they all (assuming the last one is the same) are a similar colour. This is rather dark which may point towards running a bit rich or maybe oiling but it doesn't look excessive and there is no 'rogue' cylinder

I'd do what you plan to do, put the new bits on and then see how it runs. At least you will have eliminated a few areas of doubt.
The results of the compression test will be interesting.

Some interesting developments.
Got the car back into a running order today so that I could warm up the engine for the compression test. Left the incredibly dirty air filter out. This was probably last changed when the sparks were s:)

s:) I also switched bank 1 and bank 2 O2 sensors. Battery was disconnected for about 5 minutes so I don't think ECU reset happened.

...aaanndd the car idled quite normally without poisoning me with fuel vapours.

Compression gauge didn't show a reading, so I've ordered a new one which I should get today. It had a leak on the bayonet connector. I tried with just the hose into the cylinder and a piece of tape over the hole and it blew it clean off so...definitely compression.

Need to check my reinstall of the chain tensioner as well because an awkward rattling presented itself after about 4 minutes of idling on the drive. Eek.

Wabbitkilla · June 20, 2013, 18:12

Before my last service fuel economy was crap, plugs had big gaps compared to normal. Ran smooth as after replacing them and economy restored.

Cam chain tensioner needs a bit of care, did you hear it snap back when you manually turned over the engine?

shnazzle · June 20, 2013, 19:08

Quote from: "Wabbitkilla"Before my last service fuel economy was crap, plugs had big gaps compared to normal. Ran smooth as after replacing them and economy restored.

Cam chain tensioner needs a bit of care, did you hear it snap back when you manually turned over the engine?

I've done a cold compression test. Kind of meaningless but just to check variance between cylls

50, 47, 53, 50. Dry and cold.

mrzwei · June 20, 2013, 20:17

Copied from an old post (which got a bit heated s:lol: :lol: s:lol: ):

Compression tested my engine!!!!!

Postby AmeR » Sun Nov 04, 2012 10:42 am

According to Toyota, the Compression Pressure of a stock 1ZZ as found in these cars should be:
1,270kPa / 13.0kgf/cm(sq) / 184psi

Minimum pressure of:
1,000kPa / 10.2kgf/cm(sq) / 145psi

With a difference between each cylinder of 100kPa / 1.0kgf/cm(sq) / 15psi or less

Being that its their engine and I'd imagine they've spent a tad more on research, development and construction of the engines than I'm likely to earn in a lifetime, can we put the pi$$ing contest to bed and afford the OP some advice?

The official line for Toyota is:
1. Warm up and stop the engine
2. Remove ignition coils
3. Remove spark plugs
4. Inspect compression (insert gauge, fully open throttle)
Hint: always use a fully charged battery to obtain engine speed of 250rpm or more

Is that the procedure you followed?
AmeR

END OF QUOTE

Should help when you do it for real.
The engine needs to turn over quite a few times (say 10 / 12) to hit max. compression.

shnazzle · June 20, 2013, 21:06

The only thing I didn't do, as mentioned, was warm up the engine. Didn't get to it tonight but will do tomorrow.

I'm a bit confused as to why I'm around 50ish psi.
The only thing I can think (besides cold engine) is that my battery is poop. Although testing it delivers 12.4v

I know it's a far cry from the 175 I was expecting.
It stopped rising after 6/7 turns

Will drive it around tomorrow and try after

GSB · June 21, 2013, 00:21

1/ 50psi, even cold, is really-really low
2/ 6/7 turns, is a very long time
3/ 12.4 volts on a 12 volt battery, equals knackered. It should over 13 when fully charged. (Approx 2 1/4 volts per cell)

Get a decent battery that will crank the engine over nice and quick. There's no real load with no spark plugs in, so it should be really fast when cranking

Get a friend to hold the throttle wide open.

Full pressure should have come up by the third stroke.

shnazzle · June 21, 2013, 06:49

Quote from: "GSB"1/ 50psi, even cold, is really-really low
2/ 6/7 turns, is a very long time
3/ 12.4 volts on a 12 volt battery, equals knackered. It should over 13 when fully charged. (Approx 2 1/4 volts per cell)

Get a decent battery that will crank the engine over nice and quick. There's no real load with no spark plugs in, so it should be really fast when cranking

Get a friend to hold the throttle wide open.

Full pressure should have come up by the third stroke.

The car always started instantly though. Never noticed issues with it not starting quickly.

I did hold the throttle in fully. I put the gauge in the rear window and looked at it in the rear view mirror while I say in, throttle to the floor and turned the key for as many strokes until it maxed out.

I'll see if I can steal my other cars battery temporarily if the specs match

shnazzle · June 21, 2013, 19:21

I'm happy with the results I've got from just a simple O2 sensor replacement and a service.
All of the above symptoms were caused by:
- Incredibly dirty and blocked up air filter
- dirty spark plugs (good kind of dirty) with gaps wide enough to park a 747
- Faulty O2 sensor

The engine runs smoother than I've ever heard it run since I've owned it. Once I flush the engine and fill it again with some Toyota 10w40, I expect it to run just that bit smoother.

I took another log over a 20 minutes drive, and the fuel trims are beautifully stable with long-term being 0%. O2 sensor is going up and down as expected, as it should. Short term fuel trim is acting accordingly. No more erratic behaviour.

Haven't done a compression test as my battery is still poop. Not too inclined to do so anymore to be honest.

As far as I'm concerned. SORTED. Gear bushings sorted. Car drives a right treat. One happy camper here s:)

s:)

MattPerformance · June 22, 2013, 17:36

Disconnect the injectors too. My procedure, although very slightly different from Toyota is for 8 full cranks with WOT and no fuel (to avoid bore wash) with a cold engine. It's not strictly in accordance with Toyota standards but I've probably tested more engines than most. 190psi (on my gauge) is about as low as I've seen with consistency across the cylinders. Once you go below you tend to find one or more cylinders with wildly varying readings. The engine would not run with pressures below 100psi.

Those plugs were shocking by the way. A very clear reason why fuel burning would not have been good. O2 sensor measure (surprise surprise) oxygen, so unburnt fuel due to knackered plugs would not be seen by the sensors hence why there were no codes. Same applies if combustion is poor due to lack of compression. Sometimes you can see more from what the sensors aren't telling you than from what they are (assuming of course that the OP's assertion that is was over-fueling was accurate).

Looks like some progress is being made, but, as ever, always start with the basics. I dread to think what the engine oil looks like judging by the air filter and plugs!

shnazzle · June 22, 2013, 18:03

Quote from: "MattPerformance"Disconnect the injectors too. My procedure, although very slightly different from Toyota is for 8 full cranks with WOT and no fuel (to avoid bore wash) with a cold engine. It's not strictly in accordance with Toyota standards but I've probably tested more engines than most. 190psi (on my gauge) is about as low as I've seen with consistency across the cylinders. Once you go below you tend to find one or more cylinders with wildly varying readings. The engine would not run with pressures below 100psi.

Those plugs were shocking by the way. A very clear reason why fuel burning would not have been good. O2 sensor measure (surprise surprise) oxygen, so unburnt fuel due to knackered plugs would not be seen by the sensors hence why there were no codes. Same applies if combustion is poor due to lack of compression. Sometimes you can see more from what the sensors aren't telling you than from what they are (assuming of course that the OP's assertion that is was over-fueling was accurate).

Looks like some progress is being made, but, as ever, always start with the basics. I dread to think what the engine oil looks like judging by the air filter and plugs!

That's exactly how I did my compression test Matt. Except for that I counted to 7 when turning over. Don't know why. Disconnected everything (injectors too, seemed to make sense to me), 7 cranks with WOT.

Do you think my (very) low compression numbers could just be due to the battery being old? As it does start the engine very quickly.

I'll be doing the oil tomorrow I think, after a flush. Does that sound ok to you or do you reckon a flush will cause more harm than good?

MattPerformance · June 22, 2013, 20:13

Oil/ flush definitely makes sense given the apparent poor servicing in the past, then try the compression test again with a fresh battery or jump pack/ leads and see what you get.

I wouldn't rule out a faulty/ bad-reading compression gauge though cause I'm sure the engine wouldn't run with circa 50psi compression results (and it does!!).

shnazzle · June 23, 2013, 09:01

On a side note, when changing the oil in the 2, do you need to replace the washer? One wasn't provided by CTP so I'm assuming not.

Used to replacing the whole nut and washer.

ChrisGB · June 23, 2013, 09:04

I have re used them occasionally with no problem but my Toyota dealer usually puts one in the box with the filter.

shnazzle · June 23, 2013, 10:09

Quote from: "ChrisGB"I have re used them occasionally with no problem but my Toyota dealer usually puts one in the box with the filter.

Admittedly haven't checked the filter box.
In any case I can crack on with it today

shnazzle · June 23, 2013, 15:03

Oil changed in the pouring rain. Oil was thick and black, couldn't find any deposits or anything from the flush.

New washer was provided with the filter.

My oil filter tool didn't fit the tiny MR2 filter, so it's just on there with a few manual twists with all my might. Hope that suffices.

Still have to top up the last 2ltr or so of oil.

ChrisGB · June 23, 2013, 15:25

Quote from: "shnazzle"Oil changed in the pouring rain. Oil was thick and black, couldn't find any deposits or anything from the flush.

New washer was provided with the filter.

My oil filter tool didn't fit the tiny MR2 filter, so it's just on there with a few manual twists with all my might. Hope that suffices.

Still have to top up the last 2ltr or so of oil.

Blimey, thick oil after a flush s:shock: :shock: s:shock: Still, the blacker it comes out, the less gunge in the engine. Oil filter tool is for getting filters off. They should only go on hand tight.

shnazzle · June 23, 2013, 15:36

Quote from: "ChrisGB"
Quote from: "shnazzle"Oil changed in the pouring rain. Oil was thick and black, couldn't find any deposits or anything from the flush.

New washer was provided with the filter.

My oil filter tool didn't fit the tiny MR2 filter, so it's just on there with a few manual twists with all my might. Hope that suffices.

Still have to top up the last 2ltr or so of oil.

Blimey, thick oil after a flush s:shock: :shock: s:shock: Still, the blacker it comes out, the less gunge in the engine. Oil filter tool is for getting filters off. They should only go on hand tight.

Really. I usually get it on hand-tight, not too much pressure, then give it a tiny turn with the tool to tighten it.

It wasn't wildly thick or anything. Just thicker than I thought given that I smelled fuel in it, and the flush.

Happy it's all out