Matt's cylinder head rebuild - Finished

[slowerisfaster]

As the title says I am getting ready to do a rebuild of the head in a couple of weeks. I have done a LOT of reading on this subject (thanks to this forum and others) and feel pretty confident that I will be able to complete it without much trouble. Since this will be the furthest I've dug into an engine bay I would like to make sure I haven't missed anything as far as the parts list goes. If you guys wouldn't mind taking a look at what I've ordered so far and make any suggestions, I would appreciate it. Here goes:

1987 Supra Base W/ Sport Package - 5spd manual - 7M-GE - 55,000 miles

1. Top end gasket set (will NOT be using the provided head gasket)
2. OEM Toyota head gasket
3. Water pump
4. Thermostat
5. Timing belt w/ tensioner
6. ARP head studs
7. M12 x 1.25 Thread Chaser
8. M10 x 1.25 Helicoil Kit (for the exhaust studs)
9. 10mm Hex Socket (long) for removing stock head bolts
10. 14mm 12 Point Deep Socket for installing ARP studs
11. Dino oil (not synthentic) for break in
12. Toyota red coolant
13. Spark plugs

Did I miss any parts? Are there any other SPECIAL tools I will need? (I have a torque wrench already)

I will be having a machine shop do the actual work on the head; I'm just removing and reinstalling. I am still debating if I should have them do a mild port 'n polish. From what I've gathered by searching it looks like I should NOT have them do the exhaust side; only the intake side. Can someone confirm this?

Thank you for your help.

 

[plaaya69]

It looks like you have been doing your homework and have a great list of things. For removing the head, just need the basic tool set will do along with the sockets you listed and maybe a breaker bar for removing those original head bolts. The only thing I would add is NGK spark plug wires (and recommend NGK plugs too) and you will need some sealant for under the headgasket for where the lower rear timing cover and block meet.

 

[slowerisfaster]

Thanks. A normal tool set I have already. I didn't list it, but did plan on buying new plugs and I already have a tube of FIPG.

 

[plaaya69]

It sounds like you are ready to go then. Let us know how the job goes when you are done.

Also as for the port n polish, I would not spend the extra money if you are keeping everything original and I would only do that unless you plan on going turbo or plan on some higher HP.

 

[Asterix]

What's your plan for the exhaust? If you're going with a free-flowing one, like 2.5" mandrel-bent tubing with a low-resistance muffler & resonator, doing your own gasket matching of the intake parts can be worth your time. It's not hard with a small sanding drum and drill.

 

[slowerisfaster]

What's your plan for the exhaust? If you're going with a free-flowing one, like 2.5" mandrel-bent tubing with a low-resistance muffler & resonator, doing your own gasket matching of the intake parts can be worth your time. It's not hard with a small sanding drum and drill.

No plans for the exhaust right now. The head rebuild is eating up what little funding I have. I think I'm gonna skip the port n polish as there is still other things the car is going to need without worrying about a very minor increase in performance.

I started on the disassembly today, but didn't get too far as I spent much of the day re-organizing my sister's garage to fit the car in. That's one of the downsides of living in an apartment. I'm also taking it slow and labeling all the bolts/nuts, vacuum hoses, and wiring. I should have it all apart this Sunday and then Monday it is off to the machine shop.

While I was under the car I discovered I have an oil pan leak so it looks like my oil loss wasn't entirely the valve seal's fault. Guess I'll add it to the list...

 

[slowerisfaster]

Hey everyone, I have another couple of questions. I was looking through the TSRM on doing the timing belt and it looks like I will need a puller to pull the crankshaft pulley. Is this something common I should be able to rent from Autozone or do I need the Toyota SST. Also, just in case my oil leak is not from the oil pan, but instead from the front main seal, does a top end gasket set usually come with this seal or do I need to get one? Thanks once again.

BTW, that oil pan looks like a PITA to fix a leak. I don't have an engine hoist so I guess I would have to remove the front crossmember. Ugggh.

 

[Asterix]

I'd still consider a basic gasket match if you have the time.

While the front of your engine is apart, definitely change both front crank and oil pump seals. They're easy.

Sometimes the crank pulley comes off easily, sometimes it takes a puller. Any 2- or 3-arm puller that's big enough will work, as long as the radiator is out. You will want to break loose the front bolt with the trans in gear, parking brake on, and wheel chocks in place. It's way up at 195ft-lb.

 

[slowerisfaster]

I'd still consider a basic gasket match if you have the time.

While the front of your engine is apart, definitely change both front crank and oil pump seals. They're easy.

Sometimes the crank pulley comes off easily, sometimes it takes a puller. Any 2- or 3-arm puller that's big enough will work, as long as the radiator is out. You will want to break loose the front bolt with the trans in gear, parking brake on, and wheel chocks in place. It's way up at 195ft-lb.

Thanks for the tip on the pulley bolt. Made some more progress after work today. Getting closer. Upon doing a little searching it doesn't look like the oil seals come with the gasket kit. I will need to order them. Can someone please verify that these are the correct part numbers for the seals I will need? Part #9031152003 and Part #9008031022 (not sure about this one, but it looks like it is the correct replacement one for an older part number).

Also, upon closer inspection its hard to tell if the front main seal is the cause of the oil leak, or the oil pan "gasket". I will definitely replace the seals, but I'll leave the oil pan for now and see if the leak goes away. Besides, after looking at it, I know the TSRM says to remove the crossmember, but I have small enough hands to get to all the bolts I think. I looks like I might be able to pull the oil pan without removing the crossmember, unless I'm missing something else that would be in the way. Hopefully its the seal and I won't have to bother with the oil pan at all.

 

[suprarx7nut]

Pulling the pan with the engine in the car is a huge PITA. I would buy a hoist off craigs well before I'd try to remove the crossmember or try to unbolt it in-situ. Getting a good seal on that pan is near impossible without free and clear access. I'd leave it alone or go buy a hoist.

 

[f00g00]

Don't forget the valve clearances. Toyota uses shims in buckets, there are no adjusting these except by putting a different shim thickness in. They can be a pita to mess with so make sure the machine shop has experience on this. If you do it yourself you will need a micrometer and a tool to remove the shims. And try not to mix them up.

 

[slowerisfaster]

So I thought I'd update everyone on how it's going (and I changed the thread title to be more current). I couldn't work on the car for a number of days, but I finally did today and was able to get the head off successfully! Tomorrow it goes to the machine shop so they can do their thing. I will also be changing out the front main oil seal and water pump as well as cleaning up as many parts as I can so it's fresh when I start reassembly.

I do have 2 questions though. First, is it unusual to have this much oil in the intake (see photo) before a head rebuild? Should I be on the lookout for something else before I put it all back together?



Second, I found this little rubber piece in one of the spark plug holes. I'm not sure if it fell off of something or what. Does anyone happen to recognize what it goes to (if anything)?

 

[plaaya69]

Alot of that dirt if from the EGR valve allowing those dirty exhaust gases back into the intake. My intake manifolds from my old JDM motor look like new on the inside as they did not run a EGR valve.

That second picture looks like it may be a dust cap for the throttle body adjustment screw or even looks kinda like the dust cover that goes on the rear rotor where the hub is but I don't think it is that.

 

[slowerisfaster]

Time for another update - Need your opinion.

I got the head back from the machine shop today. All the valves came out fine according to the machinist, but...his opinion is that the camshaft journals have too much abnormal wear to safely reuse them. Now I did search a bunch and read that some scoring is normal on the camshaft journals because of the soft material that is used. The problem is I have no way of knowing what is normal and what isn't. Also, most of those threads are so old that any pictures that were linked have long since disappeared; so nothing to reference. Here are the photos of the Exhaust Camshaft journals. I have more of the intake side and of the camshaft caps, but it's late and I don't have time to upload them right now.

After looking at them, what is your initial impression?

Unfortunately, I do not have a micrometer to measure the journal diameter to see if it is in spec or not.

If they are junk, then what? The exhaust camshaft has been discontinued and I couldn't find it anywhere online. The intake is available for around $150 or so. OR do I bite the bullet and upgrade to stage 2 Brian Crower cams?

As always, your feedback is most appreciated.

Exhaust Cam Journals 1 and 2

Exhaust Cam Journal 2 Close Up

Exhaust Cam Journals 4 and 3

Exhaust Cam Journals 6 and 5

Exhaust Cam Journal 7

 

[plaaya69]

Those cams just by looking at them look very good. I have seen people install oem ones in worst condition and scored lot more than that.

 

[suprarx7nut]

Those cams look fantastic. I have used some cams in a 7m that looked absolutely god awful. I'm talking rust covered journals with a surface as smooth as sandpaper. I threw them in (old 7MGE I had) and checked them after a few thousand miles. They were pristine looking.

I don't know what it takes for the cam journals to cause problems, functionally, but I've never had problems and I've run some gnarly looking cams. Yours look great.

 

[slowerisfaster]

Yeah the machinist was concerned about the edges of the journals and the fine scoring on a couple of them. You can just feel them with a fingernail. Admittedly he said he does not work on overhead cam engines very often; mostly V8s. I was able to borrow a micrometer from one of the service techs here at work (I work for a Honda dealer BTW). Assuming I was using and reading it correctly, all of the cam journal measurements fell within the specs listed in the TSRM. Unfortunately I didn't have time to measure the lobes, but they look good anyway. Here is what I recorded:

So far the consensus seems to indicate that I can move forward and start putting this thing back together. If anyone disagrees I'd love for them to weigh in.

Intake Journals
#1 - 1.0613
#2 - 1.0595
#3 - 1.0586
#4 - 1.0586
#5 - 1.0599
#6 - 1.0598
#7 - 1.0591

Exhaust Journals
#1 - 1.0612
#2 - 1.0591
#3 - 1.0595
#4 - 1.0596
#5 - 1.0597
#6 - 1.0597
#7 - 1.0599

I also need some clarification on something. In the TSRM on page EM-55 it states to oil the seal and install it to the camshaft. Then it goes through the steps to install the camshaft and tighten down the caps. Then on page EM-56 is says to use a SST to drive in a new camshaft oil seal. So are there 2 seals for each camshaft or are they referring to the same seal?

Using this link: http://www.turboninjas.com/mk3supra/1987/02-EngineMechanical.pdf

 

[plaaya69]

On the seals you only have one front seal for each cam (total of two). Both ways you have described you can do either way as it is referring to the same seal but it is just a tab bit easier when the cam has the seal on it and you drop it in with the install of the cam to head.


On a side note: once you install all the cam caps on the cams and right before you put the valve covers on you need to use some sealant on the front corners of the cam caps where the valve cover gasket meets (4 spots total) too.

 

[slowerisfaster]

On the seals you only have one front seal for each cam (total of two). Both ways you have described you can do either way as it is referring to the same seal but it is just a tab bit easier when the cam has the seal on it and you drop it in with the install of the cam to head.


On a side note: once you install all the cam caps on the cams and right before you put the valve covers on you need to use some sealant on the front corners of the cam caps where the valve cover gasket meets (4 spots total) too.

That's what I thought on the cam seals. It just read weird in the tsrm.

I actually changed the valve cover gaskets once before and I remember putting the FIPG where you described. Never hurts to have a reminder though.

 

[slowerisfaster]

I'd like to let everyone know that I have finished getting the head back on the car and it is once again on the road. Thank you to everyone who replied. I can say this is a pretty big project for someone who has not done something like this before and my advice to anyone in a similar situation is to plan ahead as much as possible and make sure to allot yourself plenty of time to complete it.

I've driven the car about a 100 miles so far. I'm going to change out the oil tomorrow and drain the water from the radiator and block in order to put actual coolant in.

I do have a small issue and once again if anyone can help me on where to start looking for a solution, I would appreciate it. The idle on the car seems a little lumpy to me, especially with the A/C off. The RPM gauge doesn't really move at all and stays right at 700 rpm. Its more of a seat of the pants kind of a feel; a sort of wobble like to might feel if you had a big V8. The car idled smooth before rebuilding the head. I have triple checked the timing and it is bang on at 10 degrees BTDC. Throughout the rest of the RPM range everything feels fine. With the A/C on the RPM goes to 900-1000 like it should and then you can just barely feel it.

I also have one more problem that DID exist before rebuilding the head and I wonder if the two issues are linked together. When the car is up to normal temperature and then shut down for approximately 20 minutes or so I'll try to start it and the car really struggles to idle and will stall if I don't give it a little gas. After 10 or 15 seconds everything goes back to normal. Now I did find a post about this, but the solution to that guy's problem had to do with his cam position sensor which I don't have as I am N/A.

So what do you think? Separate problems or related? Where should I start diagnosing? Feel free to ask follow up questions.