ES3_Ray

if you guys ever wanted to know what the engine looked like inside.

i only had to replace 3 of the shims that were out of spec.









any questions? comments?

Woogie

Thanks for posting the photos. How long did the process take?

capnfred

nice pics, what prompted you to check the clearance, is something that should be done routinely, my understanding is that this is an assembly adjustment, not one that has to be done routinely, only if neccessary.

capn

llcoolpass

you sir are NOW on my friend list. however, i have to make fun of you for not doing the rear bank

btw, your engine is horrible shape. you should replace that engine or be ready to when it goes bad. if your front bank looks that varnished and sluged, one can only cringe imagining the rear bank.... ahh but lexus will replace the engine for free or so I have heard due to the sluge recall

ES3_Ray

woogie, no problem! the process took me about 3 hours including taking trips to the local machine shop to pick up the shims,

capnfred, what prompted me to check is how loud the ticking got in the engine bay, aka valve tap
i only did the front to see if the majority of the noise was there and i plan on doing the rear soon. also i did the entire process on my car around 100K miles ago.

llcoolpass, is it sludged that bad? i thought its just discoloration...and please explain how i go about getting lexus to honor the sludge problem!!

charley240

iTrader: (6)

thats not sludge. sludge is like a wall of its own.
btw, ive been needing to do mine for quite some time, but what specs are they supposed to be in. ive never worked on valve tap issues yet and plan to do it on my own.
Charley
and im guessing youre replacing your vcgaskets and spark well gaskets as well, if so where did you get the gaskets from?

llcoolpass

That is sludge. You see, that is really more like varnishing in appearance, but I can tell from experience, that that engine is sludged. You must pay attn; that is the LH bank /front bank and it looks like that; one can only imagine the disguisting mess on the other bank[tends to be MUCH WORSE on that bank, especially with sludging v6s]. This , below, is my engine, 3vz-fe, front bank, currently with around 148K miles, at the time I think 140K miles made from 1993 [so ...15 years later this picture was taken [around april 2008]. just normal oil change intervals, and connected to a stick shift.

To remedy at the dealer, I would begin by simply showing them this thread on a laptop, or printing out a picture or just tell them you saw sludge. The mechanic there will then check it out and I imagine cry at having to install another engine in a lexus es300 or rx300. Just be sure to ask them if it would be covered [before they repair anything!] by Lexus/Toyota......

ES3_Ray

llcoolpass, that is gorgeous. haha

ive been taking great care of the car since 89,000 miles always used synthetic. =\

its 217k now, what should i do?

charley240: the gap should be as follows,

ES3_Ray

oh and the gaskets came from rockauto.com

powerwave

that's not sludge. that's fairly typical for 117k miles, it looks just fine for its age. clearly it wasn't religiously maintained but pretty decent anyway. if you can still see the patterning of the metal, you shouldn't be worried about sludge. (the first place that builds up is the tops of the camshaft bearing nuts) you will not get a replacement engine because there's nothing wrong with the one you've got. except next time use cleaner tools inside your engine.

ll, there's no way your engine head looks like that without some kind of cleaning or replacement. every engine gets a varnish buildup. 140k would not look like that.

capnfred

what engines are covered under the sludge lawsuit, mine is a 93 and it looks the same underneath the covers, I do not have a clue as to what kind of maintenence was done prior to me buying the car other than the overall condition of the car. I have seen quite a few engines in the yards looking for parts and they all have the golden honey color. I have never seen this look in an old engine before, my experience has always either been clean, or veery dirty... depending on how often the oil was changed. I change mine between 3-4k miles, using castrol exclusively...thanks for the nice bit of info...and the great pics

capn

03 ES

lookin good!
now try the rear bank thats a real pleasure to have to do

llcoolpass

MODERATOR EDITED, REMOVED CURSING AND RUDE COMMENTS.

yes I have a rage problem but it's only because I type like I talk and if you were able to talk with me it would seem less severe. follow?

MODERATOR COMMENT Yes, I do but it does not excuse you from following the rules you agreed to when you joined our forum. If you can't make your point without personal attacks and cursing, then simply don't post

capnfred, your engine is not covered. and your engine is probably not doing good either. I would definetely make sure it's in full maintainanced, ''in tune'' shape and change the oil more frequently/drive more [to get the engine warmed up +15min drives] or do one of the oil treatments that have been discussed both on this site and others..... then, it will have a fighting chance of continuing forever!

PS here's my mazda v6 engine, normal maintenance 130K miles or something like that, year 1993 made

and this is the REAR bank!!! the front was better!!! normal maintenance!!!

ES3_Ray

i fudged the title of the thread guys, my car is at 217,000 miles, NOT 117...

is there a way i can clean this safely? or should i goto the lexus dealership and see what they say about it?

llcoolpass, where in nj are you located? im located near westfield nj, not many people have heard of scotch plains

llcoolpass

your engine at 217 miles is still in bad shape, but the only thing 217 means is that you got a lot of miles per sludge. age and abuse and miles are not exact correlation, naturally...
follow my advice from before, check out the rear bank, check out the dealer's decision, and check out running a cleaning procedure

I'm near cherry hill. if you ever need car work feel free to pm me. i am busy for next week or so working on some guy's millenia