OT 94 Toyota Tercel

I have 94 Tercel with a 4 cylinder, auto tranny with 145,000 miles on it. The body is pretty good yet, and drove good. It had been using oil(blue puff of smoke when you start it up), I'm thinking valve seals. It developed a miss and the oil consumption went way up. I'm thinking it burned up a valve. I checked with a local repair shop about a valve job. The rate book says 11 hours to r&r the head, 8 hours to r&r the engine. If I have him redo the head, will it just blow the rings out? OR should I have him pull the motor and put new rings in it and bearings and have the head worked over. I haven't tried to find another motor yet, but he thinks they are hard to find. Not sure whether to dump too much money into this car or just look for another. Hate to spend a lot of $$ for a beater car and not know what I'm getting vs fixing this one right and know where I'm at. I miss the 32 mpg it got for running around. I'm going to have to make a lot of trips to the new tractor club showgrounds this year(68 miles one way) and would like the good gas milage. Opinions??? Thanks, Chris

i get this alot . How much do you like the car ? What other repairs have been done to it ? what will it need in the future ? Brakes , front end work , tranny ? Your looking at spending 800-1200 for valve job. If the rest of the car is in great shape , it may be a worthwhile investment . if it needs other work , May be cheaper to find another beater .I have a 92 Daytona in shop now , got ran hot , cracked both heads . Customer has had lots of work done to it and opted to go ahead with repairs . looking at 1500 or more . But ,the customer is always right ,,,right ? lol

That is odd for that to happen to a toy. I have one right now I'm putting a clutch in and it has 186,000 mile on it and it purrs like a kitten. As to just doing the head yep good chance it will blow the rings out because thing pretty much wear at the same time top and bottom. Now if it was me I would do the repairs my self as I am with the clutch job. Only problem I have had so far is it is taking me 2 weeks to do a simple clutch job but that is what happens as you get older and in my case having a bad back and knee and should all that does not help

My car leaked a little around the valve seals. The worst part was a blown headgasket, it leaked around the front cover real bad (oil). About a quart every few miles.

I intended to tear into it last summer, but things just didn't work out. I was checking for the labor cost vs doing it myself in a COLD building. I think I will check on the price of parts before making a decision. Thanks for the reply's. Chris

There are so many JDM engines on the market that junk yards tend to be full of unmodified rice-burners at reasonable cost.

When the crankshaft on my son's early '90's Civic fell apart, a low-mileage replacement cost $700 CDN and my mechanic put it in on a Saturday morning for a total cost of $1200. With the market flooded with imported used engines, there's usually no point in rebuilding a Honda mill. Toyota may or may not be the same.

Check eBay for links.

(quoted from post at 20:04:43 12/29/09) I have 94 Tercel with a 4 cylinder, auto tranny with 145,000 miles on it. The body is pretty good yet, and drove good. It had been using oil(blue puff of smoke when you start it up), I'm thinking valve seals. It developed a miss and the oil consumption went way up. I'm thinking it burned up a valve. I checked with a local repair shop about a valve job. The rate book says 11 hours to r&r the head, 8 hours to r&r the engine. If I have him redo the head, will it just blow the rings out? OR should I have him pull the motor and put new rings in it and bearings and have the head worked over. I haven't tried to find another motor yet, but he thinks they are hard to find. Not sure whether to dump too much money into this car or just look for another. Hate to spend a lot of $$ for a beater car and not know what I'm getting vs fixing this one right and know where I'm at. I miss the 32 mpg it got for running around. I'm going to have to make a lot of trips to the new tractor club showgrounds this year(68 miles one way) and would like the good gas milage. Opinions??? Thanks, Chris

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Up until a year ago, I was driving 120 miles a day to/from work on the autobahn with a lead foot. Bought cheap cars as long as they were solid, ran good, and passed inspection. Always ran them through inspection 90 days ahead of time and decided if required repairs would cost more than a replacement vehicle. Things are a little different here though (no potholes) so cars last quite a bit longer. Any chance you can find a wrecked one and just switch out the whole pack?

Dave

Your probably not to far off. I have the eailer 3E in my Tercel. The 3EE was basically the same engine with the fuel injection head. Both had valve and valve seal issues. You can get a rebuilt head from an outfit (JIS) down in Texas shipped to your door for under $300. I have used these guys a couple times and have not had any issues. Changing the head was quite simple compared to my fear of the unknown foreign engine. I took a quick look at the eBay store and didn’t see one listed but you could call them and see what they can do. There was one in Florida for $250.

However as you stated I would seriously consider a full rebuild. After I did the head I developed a knock and was back in it within a month. A full rebuild of the engine should run about a grand (your labor except machine work) and was surprisingly not hard to do.

My 3E rebuild cost
Head – 250 (rebuilt)
Master Kit – 275 (gaskets, pistons, rings, bearing, and such)
Timing kit – 125 (belt, tensioner, idler, water pump)
Machine work – 250 (local shop)
Misc – 100 (oil, antifreeze and such)

I would also be careful buying a used engine to put in it. The Tercel was known for cluster issues and it is not uncommon to be switched out with a lower mileage cluster. Not that the seller would be a crook, they just might not know…….

JIS ebay store
http://stores.ebay.com/JIS-Engine_CYLINDER-HEAD_W0QQ_fsubZ10078239QQ_sidZ273585911QQ_trksidZp4634Q2ec0Q2em322

Rebuilt head
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/TOYOTA-TERCEL-1-5-12V-3E-3EE-SOHC-CYLINDER-HEAD_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem25565c810dQQitemZ160362692877QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

Yep I understand the cold building. I went out before coming on line and filled my wood stove so maybe in a few hours my shop will be warm enough to at least be able to stand being in it.

There's a place called just nnalert imports DOT com that brings in a lot of high quality used engines for Hondas and Toyotas.

WHY would you think a BURNED VALVE would make it use oil???????

Oil has to get past the piston rings, it CAN'T get past a burned valve.

Bottom line is, if it's sucking oil a valve job is a waste of $$$$$, as you have ring and/or piston damage.

I had the same car with the same problem. I just switch to a high milage oil (Don't know if it made a differance or not) Cleaned or put in new cheap plugs. Add a little oil from time to time, and drove it for another 60,000 miles. I gave the car to a co-workers son a year ago and he is still driving it. The car had 250,000 on it when I got rid of it so I was going to run her till she blew, but that didn't happen.

Bottom line is, if it's sucking oil a valve job is a waste of $$$$$, as you have ring and/or piston damage.

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Unless of course you forget that oil also goes by the valve seals. Spent $600 to fix this problem on my 4.6 in a Mercury.

Hermy, I'm well aware of valve stem seals.

HOWEVER, the way the original post reads the miss came about with a sudden increase in oil consumption.

Does that sound like valve stem seals to you... did they instantly fail, causing the miss AND the accompanying increase in oil consumption?