The Toyota Landcruiser Owners Club

[Tractionman]

You've been a busy boy with that lot !
Non of that sludge should be in there I'm sure you realise on a well maintained engine, so the question is, what caused it ?
You state there was almost no significant blow by with injector seals, so there was some,  - I wouldn't have expected any, especially with those low miles.
Your turbo was probably blown by being starved oil by the sludge, as the pipework is quite small and any 'blockage' is the end of it.
What was the condition of your oil pick up/strainer, was this blocked/impeded by carbon/sludge ?
Thanks for the update. Look forward to hearing more.

[Google]

[lanedriver]

Hi Tractionman,
The oil pick up strainer along with entire engine inernals were coated with sludge which had lined the engine walls with a "latex like" film, obviously the oilways and small galleries in the engine will have been partially or totally blocked, I have sent samples off to a lab for testing. The lab have indicated ester is present in many synthetic oils so I have also sent the lab a sample of the Mobil 1 Oil I have used on all my engines for the passt 20 years. The lab diagnosis is described as "BLOWN ESTER" caused by extreme heat, but my engine never got hot according to the temperature gauge and my diagnositc unit at the time of failure.
As previously stated, the engine was serviced by original supplier Toyota main dealer twice before I bought the car with 16k miles on the clock; I have done another 16k miles, changed oil and filter three times, used Mobil 1 5W30 and Bosch filters.

I am waiting for a full lab report , meanwhile the crankshaft has gone away for regriding the 4 Connecting rod journals which is necessary because No1 bearing Shells spun up on the shaft causing minor damage and breakdown of the white matal coating.

I will keep everyone posted on progress (which is slow); when the vahicle is back up and running I will make a report with photographs available to any interested people.

[TONYCY11]

I am wondering if your 120 went in for the recall for injector seat replacement , and the tec who replaced them did not properly clean the injector ports properly before throwing in the new injector seats , if the seat area of the injector port was not completely clean looking like a mirror chrome effect , and dirt (carbon deposits) will not allow the injector seats to seal properly and cause them to leak very early (which would have been better to leave original seats in place than change them under those conditions ) , I have heard horror story's of the toyota tecs using the same pipes when doing the recall by just bending the pipes back and refitting them highly risking contaminating the injectors with dirt on the old pipes when reconnecting them , changing injectors and/or injector seats need surgical cleanliness to be done as good a job as the toyota factory do it for long injector life and long injector seat leak free  (blowby) life , a job I would never let anyone do other than myself to make sure its done properly .

[lanedriver]

Good points Tony, I have read about this situation on earlier models.
I  previously had the injector pipes off when I did a full EGR, inlet manifold and EGR Cooler clean up, shortly after buying the vehicle.

I fitted a catch can and EGR cooler port reduction plate to limit the flow of exhaust gasses passing back into the engine; it ran well with these mods and there were no fault codes on diagnostics check.
This of course is another subject which may crete conjecture.

I checked injectors for blowby as soon as the vehicle arrived home from Spain,  there was no significant blowby from injectors, the bottom seals were white metal coated as they should be with July 2008 vehicles: all my injectors came out easily and were clean; I have since had them checked & serviced all were spraying a perfect pattern from nosils.
There was a carbon ring around the crown of the pistons and some of the rings were stuck with carbon build up; oil rings were ok with no indicated upward oil splashby. The top surface of the crowns were all fairly clean & no scraping was required.

I suspect that the original owners very short school runs, stopping and starting often could have contributed to the sludging problems, then it is always a possibility that the main Dealer techs put the wrong oil in or mixed different lubes in the engine.  Maybe we will never know, but I await the lab reports before final diagnosis.

[TONYCY11]

A july 2008 UK regesterd 120 does not mean it was made in july 2008 , my 120 was first regesterd in the UK in july 2009 but came out of the toyota factory in late june 2008 so was regesterd in the UK  a year after it was made . And any120 that left the toyota factory before oct 2007 had the plain copper washers , you  can check by the vin number if your car was made before oct 2007 by the vin numbers I put up on here , and that will show if your 120 went in for the recall of changing the injector seats since they were silver coated copper seats when you looked at them  ,  the reason I say this is to give you an idea of what happened and why your oil pickup and engine was blocked up causing the engine to fail . There are 2 ways of injector blowby one is eroding away of the inner circle of the injector seat and two is the injector seat should be completely clean, any black markings on the seat shows the injector seat had carbon between the injector seat and the injector port meaning it was not completely seated to the port thus allowing blowby to happen .

[Beekeeper]

My money would be on the build-up of condensation due to the short journeys causing the 'latex like' deposit.  I think these engines warm up fairly slowly which would make the problem worse.  I've seen plenty in engines used on short trips and it's a job to shift even where you can see it let alone right inside.

Main dealers don't necessarily use the makers or even the best quality oils.  They only have to get the engine past the end of the warranty period.  Not to say they're all like that, but hard to tell what's been used in the past.  A haulage company I once worked for halved their breakdowns just by switching to a better quality of oil in their workshop.

[TONYCY11]

These engines do not suffer from such a build up of condensation because at the rocker box there is a pipe with ID of 16mm that is plumbed to the turbo so crankcase gas and condensation is sucked out and fed back into the engine through the intercooler and into the engine to be burned . In a petrol engine with a pcv valve which cuts in and out and is very narrow yes what you say can and will happen on short stop starts where the engine does not often reach operating temps .

[lanedriver]

So... the saga continues and I appreciate all your thoughts.

I have just finished cleaning the block assembly which is now going for a specialist hot wash at the engine machine shop, I have never had to spend so much time scraping and washing down the internals of an engine.
I am now working on the cylinder head and note that the injector ports are still quite clean as they were when I personally checked the engine when it arrived back from Spain.

I had a discussion with the lab who confirm that the residue is "BLOWN ESTER" caused by a polymer getting hot; a sample of my Mobil 1 ESP 5 W 30 engine oil (new unused) has been tested and does not contain ESTER in any significant quantities; it is looking like this was a contaminated engine when I bought the vehicle back in 2017, regardless of my frequent engine oil changes, the coating remained on the engine components.
Rocking and Rolling around in the Pyrenees could have shaken up the oil and sludge and moved some of the debris into a critical oilway which starved the turbo and No1 bottom end of lubrication.

I will continue the component clean up; a big problenm now is the amount of  contamiination in the fuel pump and vacuum pump, these are not so easy to clean out; meanwhile we await the crankshaft which is away for the big end journals to be re-ground; the mains will be lightly polished. All new bearing shells to be fitted.

Most spare parts are available from Toyota within 3 days so we should not have issues there, however the prices are off the scale and as usual hurt our pockets; Iam not interested in using cheap Chinese options, I would rather feel the pain and know that the vehicle when completed will be good for a long time.

[Tractionman]

Yep, different oils can and do make a difference, experienced as Beekeeper in haulage work and private motors in the past, sometimes including slight sludging issues. Presumeably Lanedrivers lab report will maybe throw more light on the lubrication issue ??

[Tractionman]

Crossed post there. Lab report I see, as above 👍

[TONYCY11]

It is possible for an engine to gum up with carbon with short journeys and cheap quality engine oil even more so with large gaps between oil changers ,  as non mechanically owners own cars , and such owners take or ask for there cars  to have the  cheapest service done possible leaving such inadequate male owners  and women (women owners are forgiven  I mean what kind of man does not do at least his own oil and filter change when a car is out of manufacturers warranty unless he is too old like over 80 or disabled)  the garages mercy by using cheap *beep* engine oil and filters as well as quick as possible oil change time leaving as much as 1 litre of old oil still in the engine before fitting the drain plug back in , once that carbon gum builds up sticking to engine parts , then a good caring owner buys the car and servicers the car with good quality full synthetic oil , the synthetic oil starts cleaning the engine by making the carbon gum unstick and float around the engine blocking oil ways etc. Works its way around the engine like blowby from injectors would .

[Tractionman]

👍👍

[lanedriver]

Hi Guys,

Just keeping you aware of progress with a short update on my 1KD FTV engine

The crankshaft is still away being reground, initially they said about a week but on Monday it will be 3 weeks and still no word on completion.

Meanwhile we have cleaned all the bits ready for re-assembly; we learned that Toyota Japan have upgraded pistons twice since my engine was built, so we will have to buy a set of the latest pistons costing an eye watering £1500; the cylinters have been honed and all found to be within required Manufacturers margins to continue with STD sized pistons and rings.

More in due course....

[lanedriver]

Hi Guys,
Here is a much later than intended update on my 1KD FTV engine failure, but we have not been sitting on our hands, a lot has been done. I sent my block away for refurbisment but called it back when I considered that Toyota do not supply big end bearing shells that were required; we could get a set in Germany but after careful consideration I set aside the failed engine for the time being. There is only one damaged big end journal which had spun up the shells, the other 3 are fine and unmarked, pistons and small ends are all like new except for some sludge and Ester deposits; all main journals are like new as are the other components. I will offer this engine for sale as is or can overhaul it and sell it as re-conditioned if anyone is interested.

Because of the bad luck we had endured, I decided to use only Manufacturers original spare parts and components supported by Toyota dealer warranty for my re-build.

I bought a new short engine from Toyota Durham, this comes with block, crankshaft, pistons and connecting rods all assembled to OEM specifications; balance shafts are not included but the originals are unmarked, the block has new balance shaft bearings installed from the factory.  We bought all necessary components to carry out a top end overhaul, full front end component replacement and re-build.

The strip down and re-assembly was carried out by Simon and Chris at HR Motors, I did the component cleaning supported by Jonny Heard at Spec J Motorsport who operates a well equipped machine shop in County Durham. Jonny has a hot high pressure cleaning cabinet wich accommodated all the parts that needed special attention. Jonny carried out the top end overhaul and main re-assembly; so now we have an almost new engine with everything torqued to Toyota specifications and tested.  We have done 250 careful run-in miles so far and everything seems to be fine, I plan to run up 500 miles, change engine oil & filter then run for another 1000 miles and do it again.

[karl2000]

Thats great, well done for getting it back on the road!  How much was the new engine?