3VZ-FE removal - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

bmj9975 · 11-08-2008, 11:16 PM

Hi,

I'm removing the engine from a friend's Camry and have discovered how poorly written the Haynes manual is for this car. First off, how one is supposed to get the wiring harness detached from valuve cover that sits under the intake manifold without removing the upper intake? The lifting hook is on the intake, so the engines must be installed with the wiring in place from what I can tell...

Also, is there a way to pull the engine by itself (w/out the auto trans)? The book suggests it can be done, but it is really tight in there. I was planning to pull the entire thing but would like to avoid doing so if possible.

Thanks,

Bryan

Luckynumber5 · 11-08-2008, 11:39 PM

Dont bother removing just the engine, everything will be so dirty and covered up just take the fewest bolts off you can (meaning the engine mount bolts

). As for the harness my bet is just remove the engine to chassis grounds, the fuse box and pull the ecu part of the harness through the firewall. Then remove the engine with the harness attached.

Everything will be so nasty and covered in dirt you will have one hell of a time getting the harness detached from the engine with it out of the car, not to mention in the car!

xtremeskier97 · 11-09-2008, 07:25 PM

If at all possible, can you take pics as you'll go? Im probably going to be doing this soon because Im probably going to have to replace the tranny soon, and I might as well pull the whole thing and get a good cleaning in while Im at it. Not to mention I'll need to replace the valve cover gaskets and timing belt at the same time.

bmj9975 · 11-10-2008, 07:34 AM

I took about 100 photos when I removed it, so hopefully some will be useful later on.

I started trying to fish out the wiring harness over through the firewall near the ECU but stopped since we have to swap harnesses with the JDM motor anyway.

I had to remove the upper intake to loosen the wiring loom over the rear valve cover, and then I had to loosed the power steering line above the PS rack and then again at the pump (hose going to fan motor). It was a LOT of work and there is little space in there.

We did pull it all at one, it's not much more work to get both out at the same time. We did have a dilemma as two rods were broken and embedded in the block so the crank wouldn't turn enough to remove the torque converter-to-flexplate bolts....but removing the spark plugs and driving a hammer down on a LONG screwdriver broke the piston/rod free from where it was jammed into the wall.

NOTE: The Japanese and US transmissions (4-spd auto) have different connectors for the two plugs on the front of the transmission (neutral safety switch? and something else). Does anyone know if these can be interchanged? These transmissions don't even look exactly the same.

Luckynumber5 · 11-10-2008, 05:10 PM

Damn man, did someone starve the engine of oil?

On the transmission issue some JDM setups are quite different even though the engine code is the same. Over on the V6 MR2 boards a few people have posted up about different flywheel issues associated with a factory automatic car that can;t accept a manual transmission because the crank is different, to engines that are equipped with a traction control system and other odd little things that cause problems with swaps.

bmj9975 · 11-10-2008, 08:51 PM

It doesn't look like oil starvation. The main bearing surface on the crank for #1 and #2 are very smooth, and what is left of the bearings show almost no wear (babbit overlays are still present). All the rod nuts were intact as well. He said it was running great, and he literally cranked it up one morning and it was suddenly "rat-tat-tat...." It didn't run long like that at all (few seconds) before it locked up. Now let me see if I can get some photos uploaded.