I love changing valve seals

[Smitherz]

at: Ahhh you know what happens when you are in a hurry? You drop a keeper down an oil passageway! Yes! That's what I did just now and it feels great. So I guess I could just put a new one in and leave it rattleing around in the oil pan for eternity. Orrrr I could just take the heads off, take a look around, have a really easy time of doing the rest of the valves, and put a nice shiny new head gasket in since I have a set anyways.

Ah well I kind of anticipated that I would be taking the heads off no matter how hard I tried not to. :grumble:

 

[Lextreme II]

LOL... open up the oil pan and the oil strainer. I did that few times too. Scared me once when one of the nuts fell into the oil pump galley.

 

[Smitherz]

I think I'm going to turn the engine upside down and just shake it. Yeah I might as well take the pan off for a cleaning and a new seal. When it dropped I was questioning reality. "Did that really just happen?" Time to flip the sucker over and open it up. I would be dumb not to drop the pan to inspect it anyhow. The seals were HORRIBLE looking. I got some really good pictures to give noobs a better explanation of how the process goes. You definitely pick up speed once you replace 5-6 of them... then it's smooth sailing. I use the air compressor method. Good thing I have a pretty good size one. It's loud but it works!

 

[Lextreme II]

I made a wire glue with a high power magnet and I fished some out. I use a very strong magnet you can get them from Micheal's. They are about 3/8" diameter and its rated 10/10. I superglue it to the end of a 12 gauge wire. Its flexible and the magnet is very strong too.

 

[Smitherz]

I'm on it.

 

[Smitherz]

Aha I found the little bugger. It didn't fall down the hole at all which shocked me.

I stopped by the Toyota dealer the other day to ask one of the guys who works as a mechanic (they love me there), if he had a spare keeper laying around in his parts drawers. He looked for a few minutes but couldn't find em due to lack of organization. I was about to call the dealer for a new one but I just wouldn't be able to sleep at all if I never found it. I got a couple pics I'll post later. I must have watched it actually bounce down there and not actually fall down the hole. Finding that stupid thing made my week! :147:

In the meantime I scrubbed down the engine from top to bottom. What used to be a nasty hunk of alloy is all new and shiny looking. Both the Lexus and Toyota dealerships can't wait to see my truck when I'm done fitting the engine. They are amazed when I show them the pictures on my Treo 650 phone =] I'm dying to get this thing done as well. Ok I'm going to get back to work on it tonight.

 

[Lextreme II]

Get them to sponsor you..... Why not?

 

[Smitherz]

I don't see any benefit in it though besides maybe borrowing some tools. They can't order Lexus parts at all. I thought it was wierd but it's true. I could use a sweet TRD exhaust tip though. The new Scions have sweet rounded/oval type tips that look awesome. I want to run the tip out the side somewhere.