Code P0340 after stud replaced. Coolant flush help. Compression test results.

Pressures look fine. I'd like to see the plugs in cylinders 1, 3, 6, 5 and 4. If you have an issue of oil leaking into those cylinders, it will be apparent on the plugs.

I don't remember where the PSAC valve pulls vacuum in, but if you were pulling ATF (which is still oil...) in at the front of the engine due to faulty PS Air Control valve, then I'd expect more oil in the forward-most cylinders and gradually less toward the rear. Cylinders on the V8 are, radiator to firewall, 1-3-5-7 on driver side (bank 1) and 2-4-6-8 on passenger side (bank 2), which I assume you know b/c you identified the cylinders already

But yes, I see the picture being painted by your testing. I'm not ignoring it by any means.

 

I’ll attach pictures, and all the info I have on each cylinder below. I took pics of some of the plugs, most looked the same so I stopped.
- Cylinder 2 was the cleanest by far. But after testing Cylinder 4 I noticed some oil leak out of 2, not there before, pic below.
- Cylinder 4 was very gunked, it also had this little shiny deposit on the coil pack hole. In the 1st pic the plug on the left is Cylinder 4, on the right is Cylinder 2. I belive I had already wiped 4's plug a bit. Most plugs looked like cylinder 4's if not worse.
3rd pic is of deposit, can kinda see it back in there.
- Cylinder 6 had so much gunk the coil pack didn’t seat all the way when I tried to put it back. 2nd pic I believe is cylinder 6's, but it might not be.

I believe cylinder 8 had less build up than 6 or 4.

I didn't take a picture of Cylinder 1's plug, I believe it was because it was average, slight deposit.
Cylinder 3 has an NGK plug, pic below. It is newer than all the others I believe. It was quite gunked up, I cleaned it before I took the pic so I could remember it was ngk.
Cylinder 5 had a crap ton of oil in it. No other cylinder had dark, fluid oil. They all only had solid deposits. But it held pressure.
I believe this is 5's plug

Overall, I don't know how spark plugs are supposed to look. I'm feeling like a healthy engine has much cleaner plugs. All of mine other than Cylinder 2 had a considerable amount. Cylinders 4, 6, 3, and 5 if I remember correctly were the worst. 1 may also have been bad.

I put some seafoam in the oil before I drove it home. Should I do a throttle body, crankcase etc clean and then a seal helper?

Thoughts? What would you do in this situation?

 

@shifty` @ATBAV8 @FishNinja
Started it today at 70 degree outside temp and there was no smoke whatsoever out the exhaust. Start was a lil weaker than usual and my engine has started to vibrate the floor slightly as of the last week. The day I saw the exhaust dump smoke it had been colder and I hadn't started it all week (My pedal bike gets unlimited MPGs) and it was smokin for a few minutes. If it was head gasket wouldn't it be happening more?

I'm feeling like this engine isn't so far gone that I should save the parts money up for a junkyard one. So I'm thinkin I'll do a flush, radiator, serp belt and pulleys, and the fan clutch bracket as shifty recommends. I spun the fan by hand and didn't spin by itself at all. I can force it with my hand and it feels very clunky and jerky(?). Then go from there.

Any recommendations? Other than you shouldn't a bought an uncared for truck

 

I think the first thing I would do is replace the mix and match plugs and wires with Denso, wash and de-grease the entire engine, change the oil and coolant and anything else you want to change while the coolant is out. Then start looking for leaks. If it still runs like dogshit, at least you know you've got good spark and cooling. Pull the plugs again and see what they look like. Might also consider a throttle body clean. My $.02.

 

Sounds good. I’ll do that. Thanks for your help! Honestly I love how it sounds haha

 

Leaky injector could do that also. If you find it happens after sitting a few days, if you have an injector that got reinstalled poorly, or double-ringed, or is just failing in general (cracked or compromised) and slowly dribbling fuel into the cylinder, I'd expect smoke at startup, but would also think it should subside faster than 2 mins.

That said, I really would urge you to pop those two hoses off the PSAC valve and at least check to see if (likely the one going up to the intake) you see any fluids dribbling out. I'd have a paper towel handy, so if there is fluid, you can check it for color.

If this was a head gasket, I would expect smoke all the time. There's a lot of shit that can result in rapid leakdown, not limited to a gunked up top-end, stuck lifters, that kinda stuff. Tons of explanations which aren't "blown head gasket". Call me an optimist, but I'm super skeptical.

@Bob I don't make a point of tagging superadmins, can you work your magic on those failed images up above? It looks like something got lost in translation, and this is one of the times when pics would really help us help this member out.

 

Change PCV valve, clean TB and MAF also. Disconnect neg terminal to fore ECU relearn.

 

Denso plugs, fan clutch bracket, gates kit all on order should be here next weekend and I’ll report back.

Sorry didn’t realize pics weren’t working. I’ll get on those again later today

 

Welp I broke the f'n timing cover stud so now I must wait. Turns out the coolant was actually green, and in great condition. Some PO at some point used a coolant reservoir container as windshield wiper fluid reservoir, so I thought it was my coolant haha.

The old fan clutch bracket bearing felt spins very freely, like a fidget spinner. So hopefully that will help.

Here's some pictures

Here's spark plugs 2 and 4. ( 4 is on the left, 2 on the right.

Heres cylinder 2 which seems to leak. When I was trying to clean it with compressed air more kept coming.

Cylinder 7 coil, the dirtiest one by far.

Either 4 or 5 or 7's spark plug

Nother spark plug, can't remember which one. Probably 5

Heres the NGK, Cylinder 3

Cylinder 2 coil

 

Pics didn't come through.

Definitely want to get that green coolant the hell out of there, flush completely. Not a good sitaution.

 

Dang it. Okay I’ve tried both inserting a url and copying and pasting. Neither worked. What to do?

yeah I’m gonna flush it as soon as I have it all together. New denso platinums as well

I checked the vacuum lines to the power steering and neither had anything fluid or anything.

Do you happen to remember which threads mention the engine block drains? There is specific process to get a proper flush right?

 

Honestly, the easiest way to get a picture attached to your post is to either to drag-and-drop into the comment box if you're on a computer, or for computer and smartphone just use the 'Upload a File' button.

Click it, grab the file you want, then give it 5-10 seconds to upload the file.

 

Here we go. These are not in order but I hope they are helpful. Spark plugs had been wiped down so they were much dirtier when I took them out.

 

The vast majority of oil I'm seeing on those plugs, and the oil on the coil pack boots too, is more likely from failed spark plug tube gaskets than anything else. Look, the plugs don't look great, and clearly you have some garbage-ass worn out non-OEM coil pack there.

This is how oil is leaking in from above, this gasket:

​

Which is this rubber gasket here, looking at the back side of the valve cover. Solid chance your previous owner either didn't install them, has never changed them, changed them with a non-OEM shit-quality part that has since shrivelled up (inferior aftermarket rubber is real, my friend), or other similar issue. And I can absolutely tell they're failing because there's oil stains all around the rim of that opening. What I'm thinking is, oil is getting into the spark plug tube from here, pooling at the base of the plug, then eventually working its way into the threads. To the point you've be wise to pull the plugs, and spray brake cleaner down into the threaded spark plug hole to flush the oil down, preventing over-tightening/stripping of the plugs at reinstall. And all those plugs need replacement, they're all dirty/fouled up, and that non-OEM coil pack needs to go. You'd be better with one from a junkyard than that piece of shit.

​

 

Sweet, thank you Shifty, you are the GOAT. How difficult is that gasket change? Do I just have to slide it in there, or is it a pull the valve cover off kind of deal? There may well not be any gasket at all, I never saw any one around there. That cylinder 2 in the pic is the only one that had visibly oil leaking out. All the other ones didn't. But cylinder 2 was also the cleanest spark plug which is confusing.

Are you saying that the oil works it's way down, through the threads, and then that's my white smoke at start up? Or just that it is fouling the plugs?

I'm wondering if my valve cover gasket's are not sealing properly, as you can see there is a lotta oil on the driver's side especially. Pic is of the passenger side, by what (I think) is the valve cover, and it's got a lot more oil around there than anywhere else on that side.

I still need to clean and degrease my engine, and clean the throttle body. I'll post before and after videos of it running to see how it's sound has changed.

 

Yes, you understood what I’m saying.

Yes, valve cover gasket leaks are commonplace in these trucks.

Yes, you must pull the valve cover to redo those gaskets, it’s a process and took me about 2hrs or so, and I had a shitload of crusty cake in my covers.

I have a replying here that gives you every part number you need, every instruction on how to do it, all those little gaskets, where to FIPG, all that good stuff. But I’m on mobile so I can’t link it. It’s linked in the megathread sticky, search it for “cover gaskets” and you’ll find a link.

 

Got everything out back together. But now I have a P0340 (camshaft position sensor) code. Code started immediately after I started it. (Very rough, grindy start, sounded like I was gonna have to start looking at new engines and nearly put me into cardiac arrest) but now it idles MUCH quieter, due to the new fan clutch bracket.

As stated above I broke the timing cover mounting stud, which holds the cam position sensor. finally got a replacement and threw it on today. I was very careful tightening it because I snapped the end off before, with probably 10ft lbs, but I did get it all the way flush with the sensor. My wires are also not in the best of shape, and pretty stiff, I’m wondering if when I was moving them around to get places it damaged them.

Thoughts? Advice? I don’t want to take it all apart again, try to tighten the stud and then break it again.

Also coolant flush help would be great, I have spent a while reading everything on here I can find, if I could get some good links that would be great.

 

The wire you're showing that's chewed up, I see it going thru the rubber grommet on the timing over, that is the camshaft position sensor in question. It is a sheilded wire and I clearly see the ground (silver stranded wire) is shredded. You either need to repair the wire, or replace the sensor.

I would just replace the sensor. Look up your part at www.densoautoparts.com

 

Okay, I just took the tape off and looked at the upper portion of it, it is even worse. I can see the wire itself. If its as easy as this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkyREKOVBnU) makes it seem I will just go for that, because I'd like to have it running by monday. I know nothing about wires, do I have to buy a special wire for this one, or just regular?

 

I mean, I didn’t watch the video b/c I’m on mobile. I’d say to try and repair the wires and order a replacement Denso from a legitimate source, i.e. not scAmazon or fleaBay. I’ve seen what others have done on here with butt splices and solder on their cam pos sensors and it still ran. I think yours will work if you toss together a decent repair.

 

Yeah sounds good that’s the plan. I’ll update tomorrow when I’ve (hopefully) got it fixed.

How bad would be it be to drive with it in this condition? It started and was idling fine.

Then I’ll still have to flush

 

I mean, some guys have gotten away with it for tens of thousands of miles. I haven't personally heard of anything bad happening. If anything, I would expect no-start situations more than other probs.

 

UPDATE
The good:
- it runs
- Code went away the next morning and the truck has been running as good as before, code hasn’t come back.
- idle is quieter, the loud diesel cranking sorta sound is gone at low rpm idle. BUT when it higher idles it comes back but pretty quiet.
- put some sea foam in the top end, maybe a sight difference.

The not so good:
- Truck still idles very loud. Sounds like valvetrain - as discussed and seen in the “engine sounds like a diesel” thread.
- Air intake is loud as sh*t. Much louder than when I bought the truck. And it doesn’t quite down at higher rpms or speeds, it just gets louder. When I was doing the sea foam in the top end and had to stand in front of the engine for 10 minutes at 2k rpm’s it was honestly comparable to an angle grinder noise level. I know the Toyotas air is often loud but I think this is excessive. I replaced the fan clutch bracket, maybe the clutch itself is bad too?
- the smoke at startup is definitely slightly blue. After that can’t tell, still goes away when after a little.
- Spark plug cylinder 3 has been re- tapped. (The one with the ngk plug and aftermarket coil pack)

 

Idle and blue smoke at startup: Is the power steering air control valve still hooked up? Or did you replace it, I don't recall... That would cause that blue puff of smoke, and also fuck w/your idle.

What codes remain, any?

 

No codes anymore at all

I didn’t replace anything power steering related. When I checked those vacuum hoses they were completely clear so I assumed that meant it wasn’t that valve.
I have lost some oil since last oil change.