There were several recalls for my 2009 Toyota Tacoma that I hadn't bothered to do. There was also an extended warranty on the truck's headlight lenses which the vehicle showed poster child issues of.
This warranty was going to expire in November, so it was a good time to get it done while I was thinking about it and before December rolls around and I kick myself for not getting it done.
I'm relatively busy at the moment, so I decided to do other maintenance at the same time: spark plugs, coolant change, oil change, etc. These are things I would normally do myself, but it just made sense to do them all at once (and despite the county's suggestion that coolant can be recycled, there is no one willing to take this, and I hate disposing it locally).
After the truck was done, I drove home and popped the hood open. The three bolts that hold the air cleaner "connector" to the top of the engine were missing. I don't mind using the Toyota dealer for service, but since there is a slight price premium when taking it there, there is an absolute expectation that work be done 100% correctly. While the air connector bolts are probably not the three most critical bolts on the vehicle, not having them there is completely unacceptable and it makes me question the competence of all the work done. It was late Saturday, too late to do anything about it, my frustration must wait until Monday.
The oil pressure on my 1972 MGB has slowly been dropping with general engine wear over the years. The vehicle isn't in the danger area yet and there was no rattling or rod knocking, etc. There was around 25 pounds at idle and at speed oil pressure was 60 pounds on a good day, but sometimes 50 when really warm.
This is really a case where "a stitch in time saves nine" and rod bearings with the engine in the car is not too heinously difficult, if a bit messy.
I dropped the oil pan and was pleasantly happy with what I found. In the bottom of the oil pan, there was a bit of gasket material (pretty common) but only a trace of sludgey goo. When I was working as a mechanic at a British car shop, it wasn't uncommon to drop an oil pan and find an inch of thick grey sludge, suggesting much in the way of metal erosion and general contamination.
Pulling the rod caps revealed 0.010 over rod bearings with just a taste of copper showing on three of the four top bearings. This is "good" engine wear and suggests no significant issues, especially since the rod journals looked nearly perfect.
The oil pump looked quite bad with clearances well in excess of what should be expected. I almost suspect that on a previous rebuild/repair, the oil pump was not replaced or rebuilt. I ordered most parts from Moss Motors, with an oil pump rebuild kit from Engel Imports. I've read various reports on the quality of the new oil pumps, but replacing the guts almost always works satisfactorily. I actually had a new oil pump of unknown origin which I decided not to use - due to the unknown origin part.
Since I think engine work must be done with scrupulously clean parts, I was scouring the oil pan when I noticed the pan was cracked. This explains at least part of the reason why the car leaked so much oil; it is British, so some leaking just serves as rust proofing. I'm actually surprised it wasn't leaking more with the crack in the pan. Ebay to the rescue, I was able to find a good pan at a fair price, although it was mislabeled on Ebay, saying it was an 18G pan, which would have had 19 mounting bolts instead of the 18GB-on 18 bolts.
It has been a few years since I've been waist deep in an engine, so I was extra careful reassembling everything. But everything went together well and it was only a short time until I refilled the engine with oil, pulled the spark plugs out and spun the engine over to get oil pressure prior to starting it.
Once oil pressure was achieved, I started the engine. Happily, but with a twinge of worry, the oil pressure topped out near 100 pounds - a bit more than I would have wanted. I let the car idle before driving it, and as the oil heated, the pressure dropped, but not by much.
I had all sorts of conspiracy theories as to why the oil pressure was so high, but Occam's razor suggests the simplest explanation is almost always right. I had previously (maybe a year ago?) installed Moss' "uprated" oil pressure relief valve (329-235) to help push the lowering pressure up. With fresh rod bearings and, more critically, a rebuilt oil pump, this might have been too much.
I removed the oil pressure relief valve and removed the shim. Installing this valve, especially with the uprated spring, is a bitch with the engine in the car, but after a little cursing I got it back in. The oil pressure is still a bit high, but now at an acceptable level. I'll need to drive the car for a couple hundred miles first, but I may replace the oil pressure relief spring with the standard one in the future.
On the Monday after my Toyota Tacoma service, I got an automated email from the dealership service supervisor that he expects 100% satisfaction and to email him if I wasn't 100% satisfied. I don't expect he really wants any emails, but I let him know, in very polite terms, I was displeased. I never heard back from him.
I returned to the Toyota dealership after work and showed where the three bolts were missing. The first reaction of the service writer, and it was the wrong reaction, was, "We weren't even anywhere near there." When I pointed out the spark plugs were directly underneath the bolts, she just made a funny face and got the mechanic. The mechanic looked at it, walked back to his bench and said something about rusty bolts but replaced the three prodigal fasteners.
I would have preferred if the service writer would have looked at the missing bolts, looked back at me and said, "We screwed up." But I guess this is too hard to admit even a minor mistake.
I've got a few tens of miles on the MGB at this point. I won't claim success yet - it is always possible a piece of dirt will end up being in the wrong place or a bearing will spin (or something), but several hours of time and a very messy oily garage floor gives the engine on the MGB a new lease on life. I did notice that the oil cooler lines have some suspicious cracks in them, along with minor weeping of oil. This is not due to the recent work, but more likely is exasperated by the higher oil pressure. I suspect the oil lines are original to the car, and I'll be happily replacing the 40-something year old lines shortly, before an extended test drive is in order. There is no reason to do this much work to an engine, only to have it undone by an exploding oil line.
One of the Rules of Life is "If you are very concerned with how something is going to be done, do it yourself." Doing the engine work on the MGB was fun. There is always a risk something inadvertent may go wrong. Yet, I'm quite certain that everything was done well and there are not three bolts missing on the top of the MGB engine.
At least my shiny new Tacoma headlights are nice...
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