Sludgey Smoky Toyota V6 Questions

I bought a 1996 Lexus ES300 for $600. The body is in very good condition, the engine runs smooth and quiet, and the transmission shifts well.

Oh, and it smokes when it starts and when accelerating. The smoke is definitely blue (oil) smoke. There are some smaller issues too, like the leather on the front seat bottoms, and an ABS light.

Driver seat (passenger seat is in better shape, the stitching is just coming apart)

The plan is to get the car to stop smoking, fix the other stuff, and sell the car for a profit.

Here is a picture of a spark plug I pulled out:

This was after I drove around for 35 miles with a quart of ATF in the crankcase.

The biggest question: How likely is it that this is valve seals and not piston rings? I really don't want to pull the heads but I REALLY don't want to have to put new rings in.

Does anyone have experience with replacing the valve seals with the heads on the car? There is a tool http://www.toyotool.com made for servicing valve seals with the head on the car, but the tool is $85 and it seems wrong to replace the seals without addressing the filth that lies within this motor.

When does it smoke? If it smokes a little at start up, maybe a tad at idle when warm, then it's probably guide seals. If it smokes when you go out on the road and stand on it, it's rings. In general. And a Toyota that smokes from rings is shot from severe abuse/a LOT of miles.

Why not just put another motor in there? Junk yards are full of them. Or just fix the seat and run it till it blows.

I just want to fix and sell the car. I didn't think it smoked as badly as it does until I was following my wife while she was driving it.

A junkyard motor could just have the same issues as this one.

If the rings are the problem will there be clear evidence when I pull the heads?

That is to say if I pull the heads and the cylinder bores look OK does that mean the rings are good?

Now you're getting off into the "art" of wrenching. Tough calls there. In my opinion, I never just aggie rig up things like that. I fix them right and fix them for me. Usually but not always fully successfully, but that's besides the point. A leak down and compression test should be done first, way before you do anything else like pull the heads. And really, a used but good V6 that you hear run at the yard before it's pulled is going to be cheaper and a lot better than aggie rigging up some rings in what you have. I'm not sure what all years will just bolt in to that car, but a junk yard could tell you. A friend of mine put a ES300 V6 in his 99 Camry that he bought with a blown motor (someone left the drain plug out at an oil change) and that's his daily driver. So, look around for a wrecked V6 Camry that you can start up and hear run. That's what I would do.

TreoWayne wrote: Oh, and it smokes when it starts and when accelerating. The smoke is definitely blue (oil) smoke. There are some smaller issues too, like the leather on the front seat bottoms, and an ABS light.

+1 on another motor. The plugs are oil-fouled and that level of filth indicates no care whatsoever.

If the car lets out a puff when initiating acceleration it may be seals. If the smoke continues under acceleration, it's most likely rings. another possibility is a clogged PCV system. However, I'm still going with abuse.

There are still a few purveyors of used Japanese engines left. I've bought like eight of them over the years and never had a problem. You may also luck out and find an NOS short block for cheap. When rebuilding a friend's Nissan GA16i, we found an NOS short block still in the box for less than the cost of a set of slugs and the machine work on the old block.

I changed the oil The old oil was dark black but surprisingly thin for oil that came from a room temperature car (it sat overnight). I put some 20W-50 in it and it smoked when it started but my preliminary impression is that the smoke is gone or significantly reduced.

how many miles are on it? stem seals can be changed easily enough without pulling the head with either the rope trick or various other methods.

stuck rings.... you can use the hose from a compression tester hooked to an airhose to change the valve seals. replace the seal and as far the sludge that isnt that bad for a yota but lots of flushing........ first id fill each piston with atf and let sit a week topping off if needed. after that id run multiple engine flushes and then see where yours at.

tool shown is great. but still need to pump air in into cylinder to keep the valves from dropping.

I freed up stuck rings on a Saturn with GM Top End Cleaner and Mobil 1 synthetic. It was burning oil like crazy before doing that treatment. I don think it was neglected as much as your vehicle. For that I would use the AutoRx program. It works great on sludged up VW 1.8Ts and doesn't dump all the crap into the Pam at once where it can clog the oil pump pickup.

Try the AutoRx first and see how far it goes to solving your issues.

I would do a leak down test as well as a compression test for starters. Then add oil to the cylinders turn motor over a couple times and repeat the tests.

My neighbor the ASE mechanic is pretty sure the issue is valve seals after seeing the improvement from switching to a heavier oil. He also seems pretty confident if there is a stuck ring there will be evidence in the cylinder(s) once the heads are off.

So I am going to pull the heads and replace the seals. I want to de-gunk the motor as best as I can without spending a lot of money so I am going to pressure wash the heads and maybe pop the oil pan down and clean up in there as well.

bluesideup wrote: I freed up stuck rings on a Saturn with GM Top End Cleaner and Mobil 1 synthetic. It was burning oil like crazy before doing that treatment. I don think it was neglected as much as your vehicle. For that I would use the AutoRx program. It works great on sludged up VW 1.8Ts and doesn't dump all the crap into the Pam at once where it can clog the oil pump pickup. Try the AutoRx first and see how far it goes to solving your issues.

Careful with that gm top engine cleaner amazing stuff but i've seen two different people hydro lock motors with it

If a little bit thicker oil makes the smoke less, just add some no-smoke/motor honey to it until you can get it sold. It should be smoking pretty little with some of that.

I bought a '93 es300 at 125k miles that looked like that and smoked at startup. I changed the oil to synthetic and changed every 2000 miles for a year. At the end of a year it had quit burning oil altogether. I sold it to my parents. They drove it out to 220k, and sold it back to me, at which time it was still smoke free. ymmv.

belteshazzar has a good point they have varnish issues on the stem seals.... might be worth running if for 4 or 5k and 2 or 3 oil changes with 8 oz's of brake fluid in the oil.

Fit_Is_Slo wrote:

bluesideup wrote: I freed up stuck rings on a Saturn with GM Top End Cleaner and Mobil 1 synthetic. It was burning oil like crazy before doing that treatment. I don think it was neglected as much as your vehicle. For that I would use the AutoRx program. It works great on sludged up VW 1.8Ts and doesn't dump all the crap into the Pam at once where it can clog the oil pump pickup. Try the AutoRx first and see how far it goes to solving your issues.

Careful with that gm top engine cleaner amazing stuff but i've seen two different people hydro lock motors with it

if your hydrolocking a motor useing gm top engine cleaner sorry you shouldnt be allowed to work on a car. most of the time i use str8t water to free stuck rings and have never locked a motor (well ok once but no damage done but i was 16)

93gsxturbo wrote: If a little bit thicker oil makes the smoke less, just add some no-smoke/motor honey to it until you can get it sold. It should be smoking pretty little with some of that.

And then you can flip the car as you want to, without doing work that will cost you money.....

You can keep the valves from dropping by stuffing some small rope through the spark plug hole. Be sure to leave enogh end so that you can pull it out.

Aren't most engine cleaners supposed to be used in the oil.?
When I used to do the Bardahl treatment, that is the way it was done.

I'm not going to start a huge debate over things that should or shouldn't be added to engine oil (there are plenty of those over on BITOG, if you're so inclined), but the only add-to-oil product that seems to have proven, third-party documented sludge removal results that I have been able to duplicate in my own usage is Auto-Rx.

I have no financial or other interest in the product, other than being a satisfied user.

I have never changed a head gasket so I figure I might as well start with a challenging application. I spent a couple hours on it this afternoon. I have the EGR system and the upper intake off the car.

My big fear is not connecting the hoses and harnesses correctly when finished so I am marking everything I take apart with colored zip ties.

TreoWayne wrote: I have never changed a head gasket so I figure I might as well start with a challenging application. I spent a couple hours on it this afternoon. I have the EGR system and the upper intake off the car. My big fear is not connecting the hoses and harnesses correctly when finished so I am marking everything I take apart with colored zip ties.

I'd do detailed photos, too. Zip ties are great, but nothing is better than being able to say "Oh! That's how it went!" because you can actually see how it was.

carzan wrote:

TreoWayne wrote: I have never changed a head gasket so I figure I might as well start with a challenging application. I spent a couple hours on it this afternoon. I have the EGR system and the upper intake off the car. My big fear is not connecting the hoses and harnesses correctly when finished so I am marking everything I take apart with colored zip ties.

I'd do detailed photos, too. Zip ties are great, but nothing is better than being able to say "Oh! That's how it went!" because you can actually see how it was.

Agreed - I wound up tearing a large vac line reassembling my 951 after a valve change because I forgot how it was supposed to be routed. Molded hose, dealer-only part $ucked.

It took me forever but I got the car back together and the smoke is gone.

Once I had the heads off it took a few days for the parts to come in. I didn't want to order parts until I saw that the cylinder walls were OK. The cylinder walls looked completely perfect to me and my neighbor the real mechanic.

Then it took a week for the machine shop to get to my heads. I only paid for valve seal replacement but they cleaned them as well.

Once I started putting things together I discovered I was missing the water outlet gaskets. Parts store didn't have them. Lexus dealer didn't have them. Toyota dealer ordered them for me and they were wrong. So I ordered them from Rockauto and they finally showed up.

Once the machine work was done and the parts arrived it only took maybe eight hours of poking at it to get the car back together.

The zip ties worked like a champ. Not only did they take the guesswork out of the connections, but the bright colors meant no black hoses in a dark engine bay were left disconnected.

Next time I would put zip ties on some of the wire connections too. I figured I could omit this because most of the wire harness is set up in a "can't get it wrong" kind of way with specific lengths and lots of different connector plug styles. This was true but there were a couple of connections that were hard to see in the dark engine bay.