The Toyota Landcruiser Owners Club

[MisterCruiser]

So, I'm considering buying a 120 cruiser that has a blown turbo and 300k miles on it. It's one of the early models with the 5speed gear box, etc..

I haven't looked at the vehicle yet but just looking for some pointers to determine the health of the engine, I don't want to buy it if the engine is blown too.
He says it's smokey when driving, not too bad when idleing and low power.

I can do the trubo work myself, my plan would be to replace turbo obviously and cremove and clean the EGR and Manifold too.
And remove the sump and clean the pick up too.
I don't know why the trubo failed yet so there could be an under-lying fault I don't know of other than wear and tear.

Any tips for checking the engine, I don't want to drive it too much with the turbo gone, if I remove the oil cap will that reveal anything, if it's pumping out fumes / gases under pressure I believe this can indicate a cracked piston on landcruisers. What should removing the cap on a healthy engine do?

Obviously I can listen for any unhealthy sounding noises coming from the engine etc.,,, but can anyone suggest anything else I can check when looking it over?

Also, would 300k miles put most people off this vehicle regardless of a blown turbo?

[Google]

[TONYCY11]

If I were you I would lookup forby4diesel on you tube he has many vids on telling if you have a cracked piston and about damage of blow by from leaking injectors .

[Tractionman]

Good info Tony as per usual. Fourby4 is a good source for these.
Karl also gave him some tips regarding this on the other side a couple of days ago, as we have seen a few of these badly sludged top end and bottom, as you know.
If Mr Cruiser cares to look, it will give him an indication.

[MisterCruiser]

Cheers for the tips, I bought it anyway, have the turbo off yesterday evening.

I had actually heard of diesel4x4 from the forum before, had looked at a few of their vids.

Have they one of removing the cam cover, i must check.

My oil was a little thick-ish around the oil filler. Oil feed/return pipes to the turbo aren't sludged so I'm going to remove the oil sump and check the pic-up etc,,, and then I'll aim to make a start on maybe removing the cam cover to check for sludge there.

[TONYCY11]

So far so good , have you looked up through the sump drain hole after the oil was drained out  with a torch to see if the oil pickup is clogged , because if the mesh of the oil pickup looks clean then it will not be blocked up with sludge . And if it is blocked up with black sludge it will be likely that it has blowby from the injector seats leaking . The cam cover is removed by removing the intercooler , undoing the wiring around the cam cover and injectors , and removing the injector pipes , if you look on forby4 diesel youtube vids use the search for any vids you need to look at all the info in what you are likely to need to see on your engine will be in his list of vids .  There is a chance the the turbo has blown because its owner used to turn off the engine after a longish motorway trip instead of letting the engine idle for 2 minutes to allow the very then hot turbo to cool down .

[Tractionman]

You can check the oil pick up/strainer if required, by dropping the oil, and using a snake or endoscope, but it's possible to see the strainer as it's directly in line with the drain hole. I use my phone with flash, tonget pics to look at, but drop the oil then leave overnight, as the oil drips on you/your phone.

[Tractionman]

👍Had a feeling that would happen Tony. 😂

[MisterCruiser]

The oil pick-up gauge, well the little bit of it I can see with the sump plug removed looks ok I think, but I might take the sump off anyway to be sure. The sump looks tiny by the way.
Can someone tell me is the sump gasket just a silicon sealant or is there an actual gasket?

The turbo is well gone, about 10mm of end float, shaft isn't broke but no sign of carboned or glunged oil, hopefully just failed from wear and tear.

Also, see pic of my throttle body butterfly valve, it seems ok, bit of sludge at the back of the pipe behind it but doesn't seem too bad. Do ye think it's still worth removing the EGR and inlet manifold to check what condition they are in?

Here's some pics:
Turbo removed






Butterfly valve throttle body

[Tractionman]

Looks like a lucky escape, but at such low miles ?
Definitely clean out the throttle body, egr and inlet manifold, don't reassemble it like that.

Is this the same of that has rot and a broken rear mount ?

[TONYCY11]

the oil pickup should look clean with no sludge at all on it , the sump that drains the oil is the lower one of 2 sumps and has no gasket just sealer . your intake at the throttle body looks very dirty and oily as does the turbo , and if as you say the oil filler is quite thick with oily gunge when you had the engine running with the oil cap removed did it sound like a steam engine chugging with a lot of blowby blowing coming out of the oil filler cap if it did it is a strong indication of a cracked piston , look on the forby4diesel site and search cracked piston to compare your engine when it was at idle  with the vids of the 120s/150s/hilux 1kd engines with a cracked piston .as well as search injector seat blowby , and if you take the cam cover off and see evidence of blowby from leaking injector seats remove the injectors and replace the injector seats and O rings but be very thorough in cleaning the injector ports before refitting the injectors and seats , if your 120 has not had injectors replaced in the last 100 to 120k miles the injectors will very likely be stuffed and deffo need replacing , it all boils down to what you expect from your 120 if you intend to keep it and run it for some years its worth doing the injector replacement if they are the original injectors that are 300k miles  old then they will be well and truly worn out and pumping in excess fuel that will give a high chance to likely lead to one or more cracked pistons and if the injector seats are leaking which they all do eventually if not changed will cause blowby into the oil because the blowby burns out the Oring on the injectors which allows the combustion (carbon) to enter the oil which  will block the oil pickup and either blow the engine or turbo or both due to oil starvation depending how long and how much the engine has been starved of oil .

[MisterCruiser]

So I dropped the sump this morning for peace of mind really, the pick up was clean. One thing I did find was some what I think were a few crusty oil deposits gathered around the sump hole, they couldn't drain due to the sump hole design sitting proud into the sump. Wasn't much but at least they're gone now.



Before





After a slight spray of brake cleaner and a wipe

[TONYCY11]

Looks to me partly blocked and you have got there just in time , but it all could be due to a bad lack of oil changes and use of very low quality oil as much as it could be injector blowby that has not been that long in leaking to completely block the oil pickup , I also noticed your pcv pipe coming out of the cam cover was very dirty also so my guess is  when/if you remove  the cam cover you will find the top end of the engine very dirty and will need cleaning asap . If it was mine  since I was to remove the cam cover I would whip out the injectors to check for leaking seats and fit new seats and Orings on the injectors for peace of mind and insurance against blowby from leaking injector seats and Orings .  If you get yourself a copy of tecstream and install it on your laptop can be had on e bay for around 15 euros you can plug the dongle into the plug under the drivers side of the dash and check the injectors to see if they are stuffed or still good as they could have been renewed by a pre owner , but if they are 300k  old injectors they will be worn out .

[MisterCruiser]

It wasn't blocked, just looks like that in the pic, that was just dirty black oil, one wipe and it was like the 2nd pic.

The turbo failed so every hose / pipe on the thing is oily and dirty, including the exhaust. I'll be cleaning all them before fitting the new turbo.

I plan to remove the cam cover next along with the Egr and Intake manifold, I'd like to put the turbo back on before doing this though as I don't like having so much disassembled at once, starts to get a bit hard to keep track of.

Is there a special tool to remove the injector fuel line clamp bolts, I notice one of FourBy4diesel videos using a semi-cust twisted socket type thing.
I wouldn't mind buying the tool if needed, anyone have a link?

Also, this is a 2004 model, I thought (could be wrong) these early models didn't suffer the same injector seal issues as the 2006/7/8 models?

[TONYCY11]

That is good to know that it was just dirty oil on the oil pickup , to remove the injector pipes you can use a 17mm crows foot but you may need to grind a bit off the sides of the crows foot so that it can turn the pipe nut on the common rail as the pipes are quite close together , the injector seats are just as likely to wear and leak as on the later 120s , it is just that toyota did not go so far back on recalling 120s for the free injector seat replacement that are coated with alloy to make them a bit more durable . When you remove the injector pipes make sure there is no contamination able to enter the injectors from dirt on the pipes , its good practice to use compressed air to give the area a good blow clean first before undoing the pipes at both ends , and cover the pipes and any entrance from and to the common rail and injectors because the tolerance of the injectors is so tight just a spec of dirt will effect the running of the injectors . Also its very important you use new return pipe washes as they are once use only , and the torque spec of the pipes ,injector holdown clamps and return pipe bolts  are also a must , if you want the torque specs just say and I will list them to you , or you can search fourby4diesel on the search engine for them .

[MisterCruiser]

Hey Tony, I have crows feet so that's the special tools sorted, I don't mind grinding 1 of them down, cheers!
Yeah, when you get some time I'd appreciate if you could post the torque specs over the next few days as I'll probably try to make a start on the cam cover / inlet manifold towards the end of the week.

The previous owner said he didn't touch the injectors, he's had it the last 6 yrs or so but I'd be pretty certain 1 of the previous owners had to replace them at some stage.