Hi all, I just picked up my first automatic transmission 95 U42T Minicab from the Port of Tacoma. It was immediately rough idling but it's been sitting for three months so I figured it just needed to be driven to fix it. Lots of smoke coming from under the engine but I didn't think anything of it at the time. It ran fine until I got off on a freeway exit, then the engine stalled and wouldn't start again. My friend and I pushed it to a safe place and started looking at it. Found that the radiator cap was not mounted securely. It might have blown off while I was driving, or when they drove it to me at the port, but I never personally heard anything. Either way, it pissed all of the coolant out onto the ground and the entire radiator was bone dry by the time the car stalled, even though the coolant reserve tank was practically brimming. There was a lot of smoke coming from the oil cap, and burnt oil flakes on the bottom of the cap. So we let the truck cool down and replaced the battery, which was bad anyway, and refilled the radiator with coolant, and added a little bit of oil even though the dipstick looked fine. Starter turns, but the engine won't start. We are going to replace the spark plugs tomorrow (apparently standard sockets don't fit) and if that doesn't work I don't have any ideas on how to get it running so that I can drive it home tomorrow. Any advice on what could be broken besides spark plugs? Bonus photo of this piece of shit:
Also, the coolant reservoir brimming with fluid is worrying me. Is there a clogged line and none of my coolant is getting to the engine? How do you even fix that?
If the cap was loose or off it wouldn't pull a vacuum on the reservoir to pull in more fluid. Hope you didn't toast your engine. Good luck.
O'Reilly said they don't have a replacement radiator cap available. Any idea what is compatible here? I replaced the spark plugs with new ones and the engine still won't start. Old plugs were fouled with oil. The engine turns when the starter spins, it just doesn't ignite. No idea what else to do. Truck is getting towed to a friend's house and I have to come back and fix it later, or sell it. I live five hours away on the other side of the state, so this sucks. If anyone near Tacoma wants an automatic 4wd Mitsubishi Minicab to buy and fix, I've got one for you lol.
Engines need three things, fuel/air, ignition, and compression. When you ran it hot enough to seize it, you may have scored the cylinder walls to the point you are not getting compression, or you may have warped the head. So, Start by testing compression. If you have a compressed air source buy a leak down tester. You can find them on Amazon for $30 and up. No compressed air, get a compression tester. To use the leak down tester, you hook it up to an air source and screw the adapter in the spark plug hole. You need to get the cylinder to the compression stroke, easiest way to know is to remove the valve cover. When both rockers are loose on both valves. You put the air to the tester, and it will give you a bleed down reading. Then listen for the air leaking out. Rings/Cylinder wall you’ll get leaking out of the oil pan back up to the valve gasket, head gasket it comes out the radiator, valves you will hear it in the exhaust or intake manifold. Good luck.
Whelp, in the photos I received prior to JCD exporting the car to me from Japan, the radiator cap is clearly loose, there are dried orange coolant splatters everywhere, and the overflow reservoir is clearly overflowing. So they got it to the auction house with no coolant, drove it onto and off of the ship with no coolant, and I received it with no coolant and no obvious leaks. There was no mention of engine issues or coolant leaking on the auction sheet. I got screwed on this one. Better luck next time I guess.
Does anyone have any idea if the gas gauge is supposed to show the fuel level with the key on in the accessory position, without the engine running? My tank says empty with the key turned on. Wondering if all I need to do is put gas into this thing. I changed the oil today. Fuel filter was probably 10 years old and completely packed with thick black burnt oil goo, and weighed about five times as much as a new oil filter. I could smell the burnt oil from 20 feet away. Still cranks but won't start.
The fuel gauge should indicate fuel level in accessory, it might take a while for the gauge to awaken however. Nothing you can't solve by dropping the tank, and grabbing the level sender unit, and cleaning it.
It's been a year and this truck still isn't running yet. Today I took off the valve cover and dropped the oil pan to check for sludge. Everything is covered in sticky oil varnish from the engine overheating, but otherwise I didn't see anything too crazy, like oil sand. If there isn't anything I should check while I'm in here, I'm going to replace the pan gasket and refill the oil. I also decided to take out the radiator overflow tank to clean it. The coolant was partially frozen from the cold and there's sand sludge stuff in the bottom of the tank. It also looks like the gaskets on the overflow tank itself are warped as if some incompatible chemical ate away at them. Photos: Any idea what this sand is? Could this be blocking lines and/or preventing the engine from even starting? The spark plugs also looked like they had a little bit of orange coolant on them, but there was zero coolant in the oil when I drained the engine. If the coolant is getting the plugs wet and it won't start, what would be the way to fix this? Is this the head gasket, or something else? Also, is there something I can spray down into the spark plug wells to clean/dry them? The engine turns over but never ignites. Would something like starting fluid sprayed into the air intake help?
I would compression test it and feed some carb cleaner or ether into the intake, that should narrow down whether it's fuel or spark that's missing.
All symptoms still point towards head gasket. Massive air bubbles in the coolant reservoir when the engine is cranked points toward compression escaping the combustion chamber and going into the coolant system. Coolant gaskets in the overflow reservoir looked like they were eaten by gasoline. Coolant on the spark plugs also points toward a gasket failure at the same point. Does anyone have a link to a guide for replacing the head gasket on a minicab? I just want to know if this is even a manageable job or if I should just get rid of this thing. Also is there a part supplier besides Yokohama motors? Engine gasket kit is $300 there which seems like a lot. https://yokohamamotors.net/product1125.html
No you do not need the pan on for a compression test. If you have a compressed air source you should pop the $30 to $40 for a bleed down tester. A compression tester will tell you if the compression is low. A bleed down test tells you why it is low. And with the pan and valve covers off it is easier to tell where the lost air is going to. While you have the pan off, you might want to buy some “plastigage”, and check the clearances on your main, and connecting rod bearings.. You will need a stick of plastigage, the torque and clearance specs for your engine, and a torque wrench. Remove your bearing caps one at a time, wipe off the bearing so it is dry, lay the plastigage on the bearing and tighten it to the torque spec. Loosen, and compare the width of the plastigage against the scale on the package. When you reassemble your should buy an oil additive, run the engine until warmed up, and then and dump the oil and replace with new. Sand in the bottom tank of a radiator isn’t uncommon. Particularly from the days when they still sand-cast the blocks.
Re: plastigage I am about to do this same operation on a parts u42t I bought before I put the engine into my u19t. I'll send you the clearances tonight. Is yours the 6v or 12v?
Confirm that the bearings are seated, your bolt torque is correct, and then send the crank out for machining and buy oversized bearings. Your machinist will tell you what to buy. GR imports has 3g83 head gaskets on Ebay for cheap. I've never tried replacing a head gasket in one of these without dropping the engine so I'm not sure if there's clearance, but generally speaking you want to pull put the engine, remove the head, pull it apart and have it machined flat before you reinstall/retorque. While you're in there, it's good to have the valve guides replaced and valve seats machined (the more you do, the longer your rebuild will last), but that adds up quick. Shoot me a message as I'm doing very similar work on a 3g83 on Sunday.
There are several different colors of Plastigauge strips that have different clearance ranges. Any idea which one I would need for this? Should I also just use the torque specs for the main bearing cap in the 3G81 manual? (I have not found a manual for my engine, 3G83)
Also, I just hooked up a coolant system vacuum replacement thing from harbor freight. It sucks all the air out of your coolant system with an air compressor and you use the vacuum to refill the system. When I suck the air out, the vacuum won't hold for very long (a couple seconds max) and I can hear air hissing from near or inside of the spark plug holes. Edit: blocking the far left spark plug hole fixes the vacuum leak. Edit 2: vacuum still leaks now. Just not from the first spark plug hole. Not sure where it is leaking now.
Oh good, the forums aren't down anymore. If anyone can point me in the direction of a manual or instructions on how to replace the head gasket (what needs to be removed in order to get at it, in particular), and gives torque specs for every bolt, I might actually try to do this. Otherwise, I'm not confident and probably won't bother at all. I could try to start the engine without coolant in it so that coolant doesn't foul the spark plugs, and then try to add head gasket fix liquid while it's running, but the last time I tried to run it with coolant in the system it kept violently bubbling out of any open holes (radiator cap and reservoir). And then if that works I might try to sell it with the caveat that it still needs a new head gasket. A mildly running car is worth more than a dead one.
Hey, I didn't get all the way into it this weekend but next weekend I'll be pulling the head off of mine. Pick up a $30 compression tester and run that compression test before you invest the time in the head gasket. If your engine is shot, you can invest $2k ish in a rebuild or a rebuilt engine or part it out and get some money back. Assuming your engine is still in the truck, you'll want to pull your passenger seat to get at the valve cover and I'm not actually sure that'll be enough room, but take a look. You want to pull the head off, which will probably mean taking the intake manifold off of the head, which likely means taking the carb and airbox off of the intake. Take everything out in the largest pieces possible so you can minimize the number of gaskets you need to replace. You can get new gaskets stateside from GR Imports in MO. Recap: Pull seat(s) and maybe center plate that holds the e-brake to make more room, pull carb off intake, pull intake off head, pull head. From there you can take a razorblade and (carefully) clean the old gasket material off of the engine block where it mates with the cylinder head because there will be lots left. Don't shovel any of it into the engine and don't nick the surface or you'll wreck the sealing surface. I also wouldn't bother cleaning it off the aluminum cylinder head if you're not totally confident that you can do it without nicking the surface - either use a plastic scraper or have the machine shop do it. At this point you can (a) throw a new gasket in without machining and risk a new leak in the not-too-distant future, or you can disassemble the head and send the main casting out to have the mating surface machined flat. That might run you $150ish if you don't get any other work done (valve seats, valve guides etc) done. I've got my engine out on a flatdeck and I'll be pulling it apart on Sunday - if you want, I'll walk you through the compression test and pulling the head off (though it won't be the same with yours being mounted in the truck). Mine is a 12valve, if yours is a six the process is pretty much the same but the bolts are moved around. Edit: also check out Oiwa, they have a manuals library with a bunch of service books that specify all the clearances and torques you'll need.
It took a year to make time for this but I'm finally digging into the engine to try to get at the head gasket. Truck hasn't been running since I picked it up at the port in January 2022 (two years ago). Hopefully this isn't a huge waste of time. To recap, all symptoms currently point to there being a breach between coolant ports and combustion or exhaust in the cylinder head (hence why my coolant explosively bubbles when I crank the engine), so I'm 99% sure the head gasket needs to be replaced, and I'm working on that now. And even if it isn't the head gasket, it would be a cracked cylinder head, and the only way to know would be to tear down the engine until we can see the cylinder head mating surface. This is not a simple weekend task. Most of the exhaust bolts that need to be removed are rust-welded on, and the engine compartment barely has any clearance to fit a person's hands, let alone any sort of socket wrenches (and definitely not any room for impact wrenches). I'm currently following instructions from the English service manual on how to remove the head gasket (pictures below). The manual basically says to detach everything from the cylinder head EXCEPT for the exhaust manifold (which I'm pretty sure you can't detach unless it's out of the car because there are frame supports blocking the manifold bolts). I'm slowly working through the numbers on the list because some of the bolts are stuck or there's very little clearance to work with, and everything keeps cutting up my hands. So far I've had to remove both seats and move the center frame support between the drivers/passengers seats out of the way slightly (there is a metal wire leading to the transmission shifter that I can't detach, so I had to simply shift it out of the way). This made more than enough room to get at the air intake below. Here's how that looks: From there, everything has been fine except for the exhaust components. All of these bolts are rust-welded. I've been using PB Blaster, 50/50 ATF/Acetone, a butane torch, and an impact wrench to try and coax each one off. Sometimes it takes me an entire day just to remove one or two bolts. I'm currently at two bolts left on this heat shield thing with two pipes sticking out of it, and the bolts have been sheared into edgeless circles that are between socket sizes. If anyone has any recommendations on a good way to remove stuck bolts like this, please let me know. (picture below) Assuming I can even get this piece of shit off, I'll still have to deal with the exhaust manifold bolts which look even worse (unless someone can tell me whether a cylinder head can be resurfaced with the exhaust manifold still attached). (pictures below) So, assuming I don't push this thing into the river before I finish, I will definitely need a gasket for the air intake ($14), head gasket ($44), and probably the exhaust manifold ($19). Apparently resurfacing at a local machine shop was ~$160 for one of my friends a year ago. Fixing this for under $250 sounds pretty reasonable to me. However, there are two gaskets that I will probably never be able to find and I'd like some advice for. One is underneath the exhaust panel with the two pipes sticking out of it (MD165747 - GASKET,EXHAUST MANIFOLD COVER), and another is a ring that goes between the catalytic converter and the exhaust manifold (MD171808 - SEAL RING,CATALYTIC CONVERTER). I borrowed PartSouq's diagrams and outlined the parts in red below: So I guess my questions are: Any recommendations on removing stuck/rounded exhaust bolts? Are extraction sockets like these Bolt Biter ones any good? Is it possible to make a gasket for the panel with the two pipes sticking out of it? Are there other exhaust seal rings that might fit for the catalytic converter / manifold connection? Is it actually possible to just remove the stupid exhaust manifold with the engine still in the truck and avoid removing downstream exhaust stuff entirely? Thanks Edit: Amayama appears to have the gasket for $5 and the exhaust sealing ring for $17 (see this page) but I've never used them before. Anyone buy from them before? Or are these common things that I can just make from a gasket material or find indirect replacements?
HIGHLY recommend pulling the engine. You probably have a warped head. And the deck surface of the block may have warped at the same time. You need to check out things beyond the head, and it will all be lots easier with the engine out, and mounted to an engine stand. You can get a stand from Harbor Freight for around $100. And if you don’t want to keep it, probably recoup at least half of that on CraigsList, or Facebook Marketplace. And before you buy a new one check online for a used one.
The rounded head extractors do work. But use lots of penetrating oil, and give it time to soak its way in. Also a few taps with a hammer, and heating things with a propane torch may help loosen things up. You can make gaskets for most things, with the ball end of a ball pien hammer, by laying the gasket material over the surface then following the edges with gentle hammer taps. You could also, take a picture with a cell phone, and print a pattern and cut out the gasket with a “craft knife”.
Removing the entire engine requires a lot more stuff to come off of this 29 year old engine that will probably break if I remove/unplug it. I'm also doing this in a gravel driveway. I don't have a garage. Is it not possible to check if the block is warped from the top with the cylinder head off? (If the block is warped, or if block/head are cracked, I'm not taking this project any further)
Use vise grip on the bolts that are stuck and tap it with a hammer. You have to really squeeze it on tight, so tight you can barely get it on there. If theres enough head left to grab. Otherwise cut it off and then pull the stud left once the head it off. You can use a machinist straight edge with it in the truck if done carefully. Might be too hard to find a size that makes it easy to do though. I agree with @Jigs-n-fixtures advice on pulling the engine. It will make it way easier to do the rest. Pull it and take it into the kitchen to work on it. Hahaha!
You can pull the bed off and use a 1" ratchet strap wrapped around the engine and hooked to the frame rails to take the pressure off the mounts and then remove the passenger side mount to get a better shot at the exhaust manifold. Make sure you basket the engine from underneath and maybe stack some 2x4s underneath the pan. Alternatively run some 2x6s off the headache rack over the frame rails and onto something solid and ratchet from above. I'm scrapping a U42T that someone "rebuilt" (bent the valves the first time he turned it over god bless him), one of the head bolts probably needs a helicoil and it should be stripped to check the clearances but if it's worth your time I'd bring it down for the cost of the boat from Victoria some weekend this spring.
Okay, FML, I pulled the engine / transmission. There wasn't enough room in the engine bay to use tools so this is what had to be done. It is currently sitting in my driveway under a tarp, where it will sleep for the next 4 days in the rain. I'll get the engine head off next. What's the best way to clean 30 years of dust off of this? Would a steam cleaner be safe? (not on the valves or engine interior, just the other exposed surfaces) Any other recommended stuff to look into or replace while this is out?
So it turns out that steam sucks at cleaning anything on its own. I've had good luck with dish soap diluted in water in a spray bottle, and a dish brush / bottle brush. Might post more photos of that later if this next part doesn't mean the engine is completely fucked. So I took off the head and got to the gasket finally. Photos of that: (Note that everything is wet because I was steam cleaning and a bunch of liquid got into the holes; this hasn't had coolant running through it in 2 years) To me, this looks like the head is warped and the gasket wasn't seated right. If anyone can confirm, that would be great. The metal rings surrounding the cylinders on the gasket are super corroded and rusty on one side, and it looks like there is some dried coolant on the valves, which would indicated coolant leaking into every cylinder, which is probably why I had violent combustion gases in my radiator. Otherwise there isn't an obvious crack in the gasket. Next step is to measure the warp I guess? Or maybe I can take it to the machine shop and see if they think it's even possible to do anything with this.
So I'm looking into whether I should replace the head bolts and everyone says they are one-time-use only for most vehicles. Should I go through the trouble of paying like $80 and waiting a month for these things to arrive in the mail from Japan, or are these things possibly interchangeable? Or can I just re-use them?
Cylinder head came back from the machine shop after only being there for a day, looks amazing. Resurfacing would have been $70 but there was bad compression on the valves so I had them dig deeper and fix those too, total was $200. All of the screws are loose now so I need to re-adjust everything in there. The guy at the shop said something about using a feeler gauge to adjust the valves while turning the engine. Hope I can figure that out. I ordered 8 new head bolts from Amayama and the shipping estimate is 3-5 weeks from today and it cost $60,which is insanely slow and expensive, but I saw single bolts being sold for $25 each on ebay so this is probably as low as it gets. Maybe I'll clean the engine up more in the meantime, idk. I think there is a leaking oil seal on the oil pump, and there was a bunch of crusted oil on the inside of the lower timing belt cover, so I'll try to get in there and do that too. I also saw somewhere that if you leave oil sitting on the cylinders and the oil doesn't flow past them, the piston rings are probably sealed fine. Oil has been sitting on top of them for about six hours now and none of it has drained but I'll check tomorrow. So I'm not touching those.
